mmmmmiammmi^mmmmmmnmMmmm\ 


GILBERT  M.TUCKER 


IIIHIIIWIWI 


BL  41  .T8  1913 

Tucker,  Gilbert  Milligan, 

1847- 
A  layman's  apology 


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A  V 

LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 


BY 

GILBERT  m/tUCKER 


>/ 


RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 
BOSTON 


Copyright,  1 91 3,  by  Gilbert  M.  Tucker 


All  Rights  Reserved 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword 3 

I 

The  Argument  from  Law 11 

II 

A  Book  Success  that  Needs  Explaining      .     47 

III 
Orthodoxy  and  Nature 73 

IV 

Christianity  and  Other  Religions   .      .      .115 


FOREWORD 

THE  writer  of  the  following  essays,  though 
venturing  to  deal  with  questions  Involving 
both  science  and  religion,  is  neither  a  savant  nor 
a  theologian,  but  emphatically  a  layman  In  both 
departments  of  study,  laying  no  claim  to  author- 
ity as  an  expounder  of  either,  and  only  endeavor- 
ing to  correlate  certain  universally  accepted 
truths  that  speak  for  themselves,  and  deduce 
from  them  ^heir  sometimes  overlooked  but 
strictly  logical  consequences.  Conceiving  that 
man's  relations  to  his  maker,  If  he  has  a  maker, 
are  of  all  objects  of  thought  the  most  vitally 
Important,  the  writer  has  sought  to  learn,  from 
the  conclusions  of  science  and  the  teachings  of 
alleged  divine  revelation,  some  of  the  ultimate 
words  that  each  would  speak  to  the  attentive 
mind  In  regard  to  our  origin  and  our  duty;  and 
has  then  endeavored  to  compare  the  teachings 
of  the  one  with  those  of  the  other,  by  no  means 

3 


4  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

laboriously  to  "  reconcile  "  them,  Procrustes- 
fashion  or  otherwise,  but  honestly  to  ascertain 
how  far,  if  at  all,  they  agree.  This  is  of  course 
the  same  thing  as  Inquiring  whether  the  alleged 
divine  revelation  can  reasonably  be  accepted  as 
such;  for  the  settled  conclusions  of  science  (to 
be  sharply  distinguished  from  the  guesses  and 
assumptions  of  scientific  men)  no  one  who  un- 
derstands them  can  help  but  receive  for  truth, 
whatever  may  be  his  desire;  and  if  any  doctrine 
purporting  to  be  divinely  inspired  is  really  at 
war  with  these  conclusions,  no  sincere  thinker 
can  do  otherwise  than  reject  it.  By  '*  alleged 
divine  revelation,"  are  understood  the  funda- 
mental doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith.  Con- 
sidering that  Christianity  invariably  triumphs 
over  all  her  competitors  when  brought  into 
equal  combat,  so  that  it  is  hardly  to  be  conceived 
as  possible  that  a  sane  man,  rejecting  the  evi- 
dence that  Christianity  is  from  the  Creator, 
could  accept  any  other  religion  as  divine,  it  is 
thought  fair  to  take  Christianity  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  all  alleged  divine  revelations,  and 
to  presume  that  if  her  claims  will  not  bear  the 


FOREWORD  5 

scrutiny  of  scientific  examination,  still  less  will 
those  of  her  rivals. 

The  inquiry  restricts  itself  therefore  to  the 
question  whether  the  Christian  faith  can  be  rea- 
sonably accepted  as  fundamentally  sound. 
Those  who  answer  in  the  negative,  at  the  pres- 
ent day  at  least,  commonly  do  so,  the  writer 
thinks,  on  the  ground  that  the  teachings  of  the 
Bible  are  inconsistent  with  those  of  science. 
This  science  may  be  physical  or  moral.  It  may 
be  argued  that  natural  events  do  not  occur  as 
it  is  supposed  that  believers  in  Christianity  are 
bound  to  maintain  that  they  do;  or  it  may  be 
argued  that  the  character  of  the  Christian  God, 
and  his  alleged  dealings  with  his  creatures,  are 
irreconcilably  repugnant  to  our  conceptions  of 
the  highest  goodness,  and  even  of  ordinary  jus- 
tice. If  either  opinion  is  well  founded,  Chris- 
tianity Is  sure  to  be  finally  relegated  to  the 
limbo  now  tenanted  by  the  forgotten  super- 
stitions of  antiquity,  and  we  might  as  well  send 
it  there  immediately  and  be  done  with  It.  In 
fact  we  ought  to  send  It  there  immediately,  and 
rid  mankind  once  for  all  of  Its  erroneous  teach- 


6  A  LAYMAN^S  APOLOGY 

Ings  and  the  burdens  that  it  Imposes.  A  faith 
that  is  based  on  falsehood,  and  that  makes  evil 
good  and  good  evil,  will  surely  on  the  whole 
work  mischief,  even  though  it  embody,  as  prob- 
ably all  faiths  embody,  many  elements  of  vital 
and  Important  truth.  These  jewels,  if  there 
are  such,  will  surely  survive,  and  be  the  better 
appreciated  in  proportion  as  we  brush  away  the 
rubbish  that  obscures  their  luster.  If,  how- 
ever, Christianity  Is  really  from  God,  and  the 
most  serious  objections  to  accepting  its  incul- 
cations as  divinely  sanctioned  arise  from  mis- 
conception or  from  a  one-sided  view  that 
neglects  essential  features  of  the  question,  it  is 
well  to  try  to  clarify  the  matter  as  far  as  one 
may;  and  these  essays  are  intended  as  a  contri- 
bution to  that  end,  though  certainly  very  far 
from  constituting  anything  like  a  treatise  on 
what  are  called  the  "  Evidences  of  Chris- 
tianity." The  word  "  Apology  "  Is  used  in  the 
title  In  the  sense  defined  by  the  Encyclopaedic 
Dictionary  —  "Vindication,  used  specially  of 
the  defense  of  Christianity  against  opposers  and 
calumniators,"  or   (better  perhaps  for  present 


FOREWORD  7 

purposes,   which  are   constructive  rather  than 
polemical),   as  in  the  Standard  Dictionary  — 
"Apology  —  A   justification   of  belief." 


A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW 

IN  his  noted  address  before  the  American 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science, 
at  St.  Louis,  Prof.  Newcomb  divided  Into  three 
general  periods  the  development  to  Its  present 
condition  of  man's  explanation  of  the  move- 
ments that  he  observes  in  the  physical  universe. 
In  the  first  place,  men  notice  a  distinction  be- 
tween such  of  these  operations  as  "  are  deter- 
mined by  knowable  antecedent  conditions,  and 
go  on  with  that  blind  disregard  of  consequences 
which  they  call  law,"  and  ''  certain  other  oper- 
ations which  they  are  unable  thus  to  trace  to  the 
operation  of  law."  Secondly,  they  proceed  to 
"  attribute  this  latter  class  to  Invisible  anthropo- 
morphic intelligences,  having  the  power  to  bring 
about  changes  In  nature,  and  having  certain 
objects  in  view."  But,  thirdly,  "  as  knowledge 
advances,  one  after  another  of  these  operations 
are  found  to  be  really  determined  by  law,  the 

II 


12  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

only  difficulty  being  that  the  law  was  before 
unknown  or  not  comprehended,  or  that  the  cir- 
cumstances which  determined  its  action  were 
obscure  or  complex." 

Substantially  an  Identical  thought  Is  conveyed 
also  by  the  next  president's  address  before  the 
same  society  —  Prof.  Marsh's,  at  Saratoga. 
"  A  superstitious  age,  when  every  natural  event 
is  referred  to  a  supernatural  cause,"  is  spoken 
of  as  preceding  "freedom  of  thought"  and 
*' definite  knowledge,"  and  the  speaker  adds: 
*'  If  I  may  venture  to  characterize  the  present 
period  in  all  departments  of  science,  Its  main 
feature  would  be  a  belief  In  universal  laws." 

Years  before  the  delivery  of  either  of  these 
discourses,  Prof.  Tyndall  had  summed  up  the 
"  vast  alterations "  which  modern  physical 
science  has  produced  *'  In  the  popular  concep- 
tion of  the  origin,  rule,  and  governance  of 
natural  things,"  in  this  result:  "One  by  one 
natural  phenomena  have  been  associated  with 
their  proximate  causes;  and  the  idea  of  direct 
personal  volition  mixing  Itself  In  the  economy 
of  nature  is  retreating  more  and  more." 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     13 

The  general  correctness  of  these  statements 
and  others  like  them,  many  of  which  are  cur- 
rent —  so  far,  at  least,  as  they  refer  to  the 
gradual  abandonment  of  that  superficial  con- 
ception of  the  universe  which  imagined  it  a  sort 
of  self-actuating  machine,  the  operations  of 
which  were  liable  to  occasional  interruption  or 
variation  by  the  interposition  of  external 
agencies  —  will  hardly  be  disputed  by  any 
school  of  thinkers;  a  settled  conviction  of  the 
uniformity  of  natural  law  is  doubtless  estab- 
lished, or  fast  establishing  itself,  in  most  en- 
lightened minds,  beyond  danger  of  overthrow. 

Nor  is  it  open  to  question  either,  quoting  the 
English  savant  again,  that  "  many  of  us  fear 
this  tendency."  Leading  expounders  of  physi- 
cal science,  indeed,  have  often  disclaimed  the 
intention  of  furnishing  ammunition  for  the 
cause  of  positive  atheism;  and  there  are  prob- 
ably few  who  would  take  issue  with  Prof.  New- 
comb's  remark,  in  another  part  of  the  address 
already  referred  to,  that  "  the  doctrine  that  an 
intelligent  cause  lies  behind  the  whole  universe 
of  phenomena,  is  of  a  class  which  science  has 


14  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

no  occasion  whatever  to  dispute."  At  the  same 
time,  there  is  unquestionably  an  uneasy  feeling 
in  many  minds  in  regard  to  the  rapid  extension 
of  the  domain  of  what  may  be  termed  physical 
necessity  —  an  apprehension,  more  or  less  dis- 
tinctly formed,  that  mankind  Is  in  danger,  not 
only  of  enlarging  too  widely  the  limits  of  the 
semi-fatalism  which  has  taken  possession  of  an 
Important  part  of  the  realm  of  nature,  but  also 
of  losing,  by  an  Indirect  but  not  unnatural  infer- 
ence, its  belief  in  a  personal  creator.  To  in- 
quire whether  such  an  inference  is  logical  from 
the  established  facts,  or  rather  to  offer  some 
considerations  in  partial  reply  to  the  broader 
question,  ''  What  inference  in  regard  to  the 
nature  of  the  first  cause  ought  we  to  draw  from 
the  admitted  truth  that  physical  laws  appear 
to  operate  at  present  ^  with  unvarying  exact- 

1  It  cannot  have  escaped  the  notice  of  an)'  reader  of  the 
materialistic-scientific  literature  of  our  day  that  many  apos- 
tles of  that  way  of  thinking  find  it  occasionally  useful  to 
suppose  that  phenomena  may  sometimes  occur  which  are  not 
produced  by  the  action  of  physical  laws  as  we  know  them. 
Thus  Huxley,  while  stating  clearly  his  belief  that  man  has 
never  discovered  any  sort  of  life  not  descended  from  ante- 
cedent   life,    was    yet    of    opinion    that    if    he    could    look 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     15 

ness  wherever  there  Is  a  physical  phenome- 
non? " —  Is  the  purpose  of  this  paper. 

The  preliminary  question,  whether  the  first 
cause  must  not  of  necessity  be  to  us  unknowable, 
may  for  present  purposes  be  briefly  disposed  of. 
In  Its  absolute  essence,  no  doubt  It  must  be ;  but 
then,  the  personality  of  our  most  intimate 
friends  Is  also,  in  a  certain  sense,  something 
quite  beyond  the  grasp  of  our  thinking.  At 
the  same  time,  .we  can  form  a  very  clear  idea 
of  a  man's  bodily  prowess,  and  mental,  emo- 
tional and  moral  attributes,  by  observing  what 
he  does.  Or,  to  keep  within  the  purview  of 
physical  science,  we  can  readily  acquire  all  the 
Information  we  want  about  the  properties  of 
any  mass  of  matter  that  we  have  sufficient  op- 
portunity to  examine,  although  the  indefinable 
(but  Indispensable)   substratum  In  which  these 

back  to  the  remote  period  of  the  earth's  infancy,  he  would 
"be  a  witness  of  the  evolution  of  living  protoplasm  from 
not-living  matter."  This  is  the  same  as  to  say  that  he  at 
least  doubted  whether  our  present  physical  laws  acted  just 
as  they  do  now,  while  the  earth  was  forming.  Hence  we 
must  speak  of  physical  laws  as  only  appearing  to  operate 
at  present  universally,  for  this  is  all  that  is  invariably 
claimed  for  them. 


1 6  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

qualities  inhere,  is  something  of  which  we  can 
form  no  conception  whatever.  We  understand 
the  properties  of  electricity,  and  make  daily  use 
of  the  knowledge,  without  forming  the  slightest 
mental  picture  of  electricity  itself.  In  the  same 
manner  it  may  be  reasonably  supposed  that 
while  the  actual  mode  of  being  of  the  primal 
cause  of  all  phenomena  is  a  subject  which  it 
were  vain  for  the  human  imagination  to  at- 
tempt to  depict,  yet  we  can  probably  learn 
something  of  the  attributes  of  that  cause,  by 
considering  the  method  and  results  of  its  oper- 
ations; and  to  learn  these  attributes  is  all  that 
need  be  desired,  since  it  is  only  by  attributes  that 
we  know  or  can  know  anything  or  anybody. 
Taking  for  granted,  then,  all  that  science  cari 
tell  us  about  the  course  of  nature  and  its  regu- 
larity, let  us  inquire  what  must  be  the  attributes 
of  the  impelling  cause  by  which  this  regularity 
was  established  and  is  maintained. 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     17 


If  there  is  to  be  perceived,  In  the  physical 
universe  as  we  know  It,  a  law  more  prominent 
than  the  rest  for  Its  apparent  exemption  from 
all  exception  or  Irregularity,  It  Is  of  course  the 
law  of  gravitation.  What  then  exactly  do  we 
mean  by  these  words,  "  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion *'  ?  Primarily,  no  doubt,  this :  That  all 
particles  of  matter  free  to  move  do  move 
toward  each  other  at  a  rate  of  speed  conditioned 
by  the  position  of  every  particle  In  the  universe; 
and  that  all  such  particles  as  cannot  move,  exert 
upon  the  obstacle  a  proportionate  pressure. 
Strictly  speaking,  perhaps,  the  use  of  the  word 
**  law,'^  as  applied  to  the  statement  of  this  truth, 
may  be  held  to  Imply  a  belief  quite  opposed  to 
the  leading  tenets  of  popular  materialism. 
That  is  to  say,  adopting  the  old  apothegm,  the 
admitted  existence  of  a  law  necessarily  Involves 
the  admitted  existence,  now  or  In  the  past,  of 
a  law-giver.  As  John  Stuart  Mill  puts  It: 
"  The  expression  '  law  of  nature '  Is  generally 
employed  by  scientific  men  with  a  sort  of  tacit 


i8  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

reference  to  the  original  sense  of  the  word, 
namely,  the  expression  of  the  will  of  a  superior  " 
—  which  is  quite  in  harmony  with  Huxley^s 
postulate:  "  I  take  it  that  all  will  admit  there 
is  definite  government  of  this  universe.''  This, 
however,  is  disputed;  we  are  told  that  a  "  law  " 
In  nature  is  a  law  quite  sui  generis,  the  term  only 
Indicating,  in  physical  science,  the  statement  of 
an  observed  mode  of  action,  and  not  a  rule  for 
action.  Nevertheless  "  it  is  desirable  to  re- 
member," as  Huxley  elsewhere  remarks,  "  that 
the  laws  of  nature  are  not  the  causes  of  the 
order  of  nature."  Laws  are  not  forces;  and 
as  we  have  good  authority  for  the  statement 
that  "  without  a  force  underlying  all  motion 
and  antecedent  to  it,  no  rational  conception  of 
dynamics  is  possible,"  ^  and  Tyndall  adds  that 
"  the  truly  scientific  Intellect  never  can  attain 
rest  until  it  reaches  the  forces  by  which  the  ob- 
served succession  Is  produced,"  It  follows  that 
such  an  Intellect  will  never  be  satisfied  with  the 
mere  statement,  however  elaborately  expressed, 
that  matter  gravitates,  and  gravitates  in  a  cer- 

1  Smithsonian  Report,  1879,  P-  485- 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     19 

tain  way.  Every  event  must  have  Its  cause, 
every  motion  Its  Impelling  force;  and  we  must 
therefore  amplify  our  explication  of  the  law, 
If  It  Is  fully  to  express  the  real  conviction,  so  as 
to  Include  the  assertion  that  there  Is  ever  pres- 
ent a  power  which  produces  the  motion  or 
pressure  that  Is  observed  wherever  there  is  a 
heavy  body. 

Just  here,  In  the  Interest  of  clear  thinking, 
one  must  beware  of  that  extremely  crude,  not 
to  say  childish,  view  of  the  power  under  con- 
sideration, which  conceives  of  something  like 
an  Infinite  number  of  elastic  cords  uniting  all 
parts  of  the  universe  and  dragging  them  to- 
gether —  a  view  which  Is  aided  and  abetted  by 
the  convenient  but  not  entirely  satisfactory 
term,  "  the  attraction  of  gravitation."  Let  it 
be  distinctly  seen  that  the  power  which  makes 
bodies  fall  must  be  pictured  in  the  mind  as 
operating  strictly  by  pushing  and  not  by  pulling. 
The  distinction  Is  more  important  than  it  may 
appear;  for  If  it  be  overlooked,  there  will  be 
danger  of  overlooking  at  the  same  time  the 
truth    enunciated    by    Prof.    Carpenter,    that 


20  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

*'  ponderosity  cannot  be  considered  an  essential 
property  of  matter,"  like  extension  and  im- 
penetrability; and  thus  of  falling  to  notice  that 
the  phenomena  of  falling  bodies  absolutely  re- 
quire for  their  explanation  the  assignment  of 
an  external  cause. 

That  gravitation  cannot  be  thought  to  act  by 
pulling,  Is  evident  from  two  considerations. 
One  Is,  that  to  suppose  that  an  atom  really  at- 
tracts another,  is  to  imagine  that  it  can  exert 
a  direct  physical  force  at  a  distance  from  Its 
own  substance,  even  should  mere  vacuum  inter- 
vene —  a  conception  which,  fully  developed  and 
understood,  runs  directly  counter  to  our  whole 
system  of  natural  philosophy,  if  not  to  the  very 
principles  on  which  that  system  is  built  up. 
"  Modern  physicists  " —  to  borrow  Balfour 
Stewart's  epigrammatic  phrase — "tell  us  that 
matter  cannot  act  where  it  Is  not."  The  so- 
called  "  attractions  "  of  magnetism  and  elec- 
tricity, so  far  from  furnishing  even  doubtful 
Instances  of  the  exertion  of  such  distant  power, 
illustrate  every  thinker's  disbelief  In  It,  for  all 
Investigators   have    felt  Bound   to   assume   the 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     21 

existence  of  some  "  fluid  "  or  indescribable  ex- 
ternal cause   for  the  motions  by  which  these 
"  attractions  "  are  exemplified;  no  one  can  bring 
his  mind  really  to  believe  that  the  steel  itself  of 
the   magnet   actually   draws  toward  itself  the 
iron  of  the  armature,  or  plays  any  other  part 
than  supplying  one  of  the  conditions  essential 
for  the  action  of  the  occult  force  that  we  call 
magnetism.     And  secondly  (though  this  is  only 
the  practical  application  of  the  same  theoreti- 
cal   idea),    let    it   be    remembered    that    every 
demonstrable  pull  depends  for  its  existence  upon 
cohesion,    adhesion,    or    friction  —  all    which 
properties  of  matter  require  contact  for  their 
appearance;  and  therefore  gravitation,  not  re- 
quiring contact,  cannot  be  a  real  pull.     To  illus- 
trate: You  raise  a  bucket  from  a  well  by  pull- 
ing, and  there  is  one  point  between  your  hand 
and  the  bucket  where  there  is  no  necessary  fric- 
tion, no  adhesion,  and  no  cohesion  —  the  point 
of  contact,  namely,  between  the  rope  and  the 
bail;  but  at  this  point  a  portion  of  the  rope  must 
be  below  a  portion  of  the  bail,  and  impart  the 
lifting  force  by  direct  and  simple  pushing.     So 


2  2  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

It  is  with  all  pulls  of  whatever  name  or  nature; 
strike  out  friction,  cohesion  and  adhesion,  and 
if  the  action  of  the  pull  remains  at  all,  it  will 
have  been  metamorphosed  into  a  push  and 
nothing  else;  force  always,  so  far  as  man  can 
discover,  emanates  from  its  source,  never  flows 
toward  it. 

Whatever,  therefore,  may  be  imagined  as 
possible  in  regard  to  the  real  objective  attrac- 
tion of  gravitation  —  which  is  something  that 
quite  transcends  our  powers  of  conception,  and 
lies  entirely  outside  the  domains  of  both  science 
and  philosophy  —  it  remains  certain  that  the 
law  of  gravitation  (a  purely  subjective  matter, 
as  are  all  physical  laws)  must  be  held  in  the 
mind,  when  held  clearly,  in  about  the  following 
form : 

There  is  in  the  universe  a  power  which  tends 
to  push  each  atom  toward  its  fellows,  at  a  rate 
of  speed  conditioned  by  the  position  of  every 
other  atom. 

Consider  now  for  a  moment,  in  order  to 
gather  all  the  light  that  purely  physical  science 
can  give  us  in  relation  to  the  attributes  of  this 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     23 

demonstrated  power,  the  full  meaning  of  the 
words,  "  conditioned  by  the  position  of  every 
other  atom."  The  falling  of  an  acorn  from 
the  bough,  we  are  told,  depends  for  its  speed, 
roughly  speaking,  upon  the  mass  of  the  earth 
and  the  height  of  the  tree.  But  the  acorn  is 
made  up  of  myriads  of  molecules,  tens  of 
myriads  of  atoms;  and  what  the  acorn  is  to 
the  smallest  of  them  all,  that,  or  something 
like  that,  is  the  earth  to  the  acorn.  Yet  had 
there  been  one  more  atom  or  one  less  in  the 
earth,  the  speed  of  the  fall  had  been  by  a  cer- 
tain difference  increased  or  diminished.  Not 
only  so,  but  every  atom  in  the  moon  affects 
the  result,  every  atom  in  the  sun,  in  the  most 
distant  planet,  the  smallest  satellite,  the  faintest 
star,  the  dimmest  mist  of  a  nebula.  Moreover, 
the  density  of  the  air  at  the  time  and  place  of 
the  fall,  and  its  condition  as  moist  or  dry,  must 
make  a  difference;  and  so  must  the  direction 
and  force  of  any  wind,  however  gentle,  that 
may  be  moving;  the  structure  of  the  acorn  as 
compact  or  porous;  its  shape,  and  even  the 
nature  of  its  surface,  for  the  smoother  this  is, 


24  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

the  less  will  be  the  friction  of  the  air,  and  there- 
fore the  more  rapid  the  descent. 

Now  the  power  that  drives  the  acorn  toward 
the  ground  takes  Into  consideration  —  so  mod- 
ern  science    teaches  —  all   these   circumstances 
and  an  Infinity  of  others;  assigns  to  each,  with 
unerring  precision,  Its  exact  mathematical  value, 
and  then  combines  these  values,   a  task  com- 
pared with  which  the  solution  of  all  the  equa- 
tions  since    Euclid   were    less    than    the    trifle 
of  a  moment.     The  stupendous  problem  Is  In- 
stantly worked  out,  and  the  result  attained.     At 
least,  science  surely  tells  us  that  the  acorn  moves 
precisely  as  If  Its  rate  of  speed  had  been  thus 
calculated;   and  there   seems  to  be  no   escape 
from   the    deduction    that   the    calculation    has 
actually  been  made,  except  by  embracing  one  of 
three  manifest  errors  —  that  the  motion  has  no 
cause,  which  Is  contrary  to  an  axiom;  that  It  Is 
caused  by  the  Intrinsic  properties  of  the  acorn, 
which  Is  contrary  to  the  principle  of  Inertia;  or 
that  It  Is  caused  by  the  rest  of  the  universe, 
which   Is  a  mere  juggle  of  words,   sufficiently 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     25 

answered  by  the  simple  thought  that  the  rest  of 
the  universe,  so  far  from  acting  as  the  origi- 
nator of  the  movement,  Is  Itself,  to  an  infinitesi- 
mal degree,  a  participant  In  it.  Were  the 
action  irregular,  were  the  movements  of  the 
planets  (to  pass  from  a  very  humble  to  a  very 
grand  illustration  of  the  unvarying  accuracy  of 
the  force  of  gravitation)  spasmodic  and  in- 
capable of  reduction  to  the  rules  of  arithmetic, 
no  power  of  calculation,  no  comprehension  of 
mathematical  principles,  perhaps  no  clear  Intel- 
ligence, could  be  confidently  attributed  to  the 
power  that  guides  them.  As  It  Is,  what  clearer 
evidence  can  be  Imagined  than  these  movements 
furnish,  that  that  power  understands  arith- 
metic? And  taking  Into  view  the  whole  field, 
how  can  we  better  describe  the  power  that  re- 
veals itself  In  every  falling  body  than  to  call  It, 
first  and  manifestly  (like  all  powers),  imma- 
terial; second,  omnipresent,  as  acting  every- 
where at  the  same  time;  third,  practically  om- 
nipotent, as  controlling  the  largest  masses  that 
we  know  of;  fourth,  omniscient,  as  taking  Into 


26  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

consideration  what  may  fairly  be  called  an 
infinity  of  conditions;  and  fifth,  intelligent,  as 
solving  mathematical  problems  of  such  intricacy 
as  utterly  transcends  the  scope  of  any  human 
calculus?  This  conclusion  plainly  yields,  on  the 
one  hand,  no  encouragement  to  the  anthropo- 
morphic fancies  of  the  heathen;  how  much 
better,  on  the  other,  does  it  harmonize  with  the 
atheism  or  agnosticism  of  the  materialist? 

A  similar  analysis,  yielding  substantially  the 
same  result,  might  readily  be  applied  to  the 
other  laws  of  inorganic  matter.  The  power 
that  turns  the  magnetized  needle  toward  the 
pole;  the  power  that  expands,  with  almost  ir- 
resistible force,  a  mass  of  freezing  water  at  the 
instant  of  congelation;  the  power  that  unites 
and  compresses  nineteen  hundred  volumes  of 
gases  into  a  single  volume  of  the  solid  sal- 
ammoniac  —  each  of  these,  so  far  as  appears, 
must  be  described  in  essentially  the  same  terms 
as  the  power  that  drives  the  avalanche  down 
the  mountain.  And  then,  this  further  step  can 
hardly  be  avoided: 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     27 

II 

Gravitation  has  been  spoken  of  as  only  prac- 
tically omnipotent,  and  reference  has  been  made 
to  particles  of  matter  which  cannot  move, 
though  urged  to  do  so  by  its  influence.  For 
instance,  the  power  that  holds  Jupiter  in  its 
orbit,  deflecting  the  enormous  mass  of  the 
planet  at  every  instant  from  the  tangent  on 
which  its  momentum  would  otherwise  hurl  it 
out  into  space,  this  stupendous  power,  when 
exerting  itself  on  acorns  hanging  on  the  tree, 
is  for  a  long  time  neutralized  by  the  strength 
of  the  slender  twigs  that  hold  them;  cohesion 
successfully  resists  gravitation.  That  is  to  say, 
the  moment  that  two  laws  of  nature  conflict, 
we  perceive  the  establishment  of  a  certain  har- 
mony between  them;  and  a  new  result  is  pro- 
duced, always  precisely  the  same  under  the 
same  conditions.  For  an  acorn  of  the  same 
weight,  and  suspended  at  the  same  height,  the 
strain  on  the  twig  is  always  identical;  there  must 
be  exactly  so  much  strength,  in  order  to  prevent 
the  motion.     There  is  nothing  like  capricious- 


28  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

ness  or  uncertainty  In  any  case  of  conflict.  If 
an  electromagnet  will  sustain  an  ounce  of  iron 
on  one  day,  it  will  always  sustain  it,  as  often  as 
the  exact  conditions  are  reproduced;  we  do  not 
sometimes  see  gravitation  victorious  and  some- 
times magnetic  attraction,  circumstances  being 
precisely  equal.  Hence,  bearing  in  mind  the 
tremendous  energy  of  these  natural  forces,  it 
would  seem  necessarily  to  follow  that  their 
causes  are  really  only  a  single  cause;  that  they 
are,  one  and  all,  the  outflow  of  a  single  will, 
acting  consistently  with  itself  in  every  case, 
though  appearing  in  a  million  diverse  manifes- 
tations. Camille  Flammarion  put  it  this  way, 
summing  up  on  his  seventieth  birthday  the 
gleanings  of  a  long  life  devoted  to  the  study 
of  the  universe  and  its  laws :  "  Everything 
forms  an  immense  unity,  the  unity  of  a  force 
that,  however  unknowable,  Is  intelligent." 

Ill 

Modern  scientific  speculation,  however,  sug- 
gests a  certain  objection  to  the  phrase  employed 
above,     "  the     laws     of     inorgank     matter." 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     29 

Lamarck,  a  century  ago,  had  already  reached 
the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  essential  differ- 
ence between  animate  and  Inanimate  substance; 
all  nature,  he  thought.  Is  a  single  world  of  con- 
nected phenomena,  and  the  same  causes  which 
form  and  transform  Inanimate  natural  bodies 
are  alone  those  which  are  at  work  In  animate 
nature.  In  this  opinion  —  received  with  con- 
siderable dissent  at  first,  as  is  not  surprising  — 
the  materialistic  thinkers  of  the  present  day 
most  fully  concur.  Huxley,  long  before  his 
death,  had  grown  out  of  the  conception  he 
formerly  held  "  of  the  differences  between  liv- 
ing and  not-living  bodies  " ;  *'  in  the  endless 
variation  of  the  forms  assumed  by  living 
beings,"  he  saw  in  his  later  years  ''  nothing  but 
the  natural  product  of  the  forces  originally 
possessed  by  the  substance  of  the  universe." 
Tyndall  scoffed  at  "  vitality  "  as  a  special  agent, 
and  was  of  opinion  that  "  the  philosophy  of  the 
present  day  negatives  the  supposition  that  the 
forces  of  organic  matter  are  different  In  kind 
from  those  of  inorganic."  Herbert  Spencer 
firmly  believed  "  that  life  under  all  its  forms 


30  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

has  arisen  by  an  unbroken  evolution,  and 
through  the  instrumentahty  of  what  are  called 
natural  causes."  Maudsley  assures  us  that 
*'  few  if  any  will  now  be  found  to  deny  that 
every  phenomenon  of  mind  is  the  result  of  some 
change  in  the  nervous  elements  of  the  brain." 
And  Haeckel  has  more  recently  expressed  the 
same  doctrine  In  a  highly  concrete  form:  "  The 
magnet  attracting  iron  filings;  powder  explod- 
ing; steam  driving  the  locomotive,  work  just 
as  does  the  sensitive  mimosa,  when  it  folds  its 
leaves  at  a  touch  —  as  does  the  amphioxus, 
when  it  buries  itself  in  the  sand  —  as  does  man, 
when  he  thinks."  That  is  to  say,  in  brief,  all 
phenomena  are  physical  phenomena  and  nothing 
more,  and  are  produced  by  the  action  of  physi- 
cal forces  alone. 

Accepting  these  deliverances  with  as  few 
mental  grimaces  as  one  may;  shutting  one's 
eyes  to  the  remarkable  transformation,  to  say 
the  least  of  It,  which  the  action  of  mechanical 
and  chemical  forces  undergoes  when  operating 
In  a  living  body,  building  up,  apparently  under 
the  control  of  a  stronger  power,  the  structure 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     31 

that  they  Instantly  begin  to  break  down  at  the 
occurrence  of  death;  shutting  one's  eyes,  too, 
to  the  great  facts  of  descent  and  nutrition,  which 
appear  to  the  ordinary  observer  to  separate  so 
sharply  the  vegetable  from  the  mineral;  and  to 
the  greater  fact  of  consciousness,  which  seems 
still  more  sharply  to  distinguish  the  animal  from 
all  other  orders  of  creation  (it  being  con- 
fessedly difficult  to  conceive  this  phenomenon 
as  produced  by  the  action  of  purely  physical 
forces  In  a  mass  of  matter,  however  constituted, 
where  there  has  been  no  preceding  life)  — 
shutting  one's  eyes  to  these  objections,  this  thing 
is  certain :  If  all  vital  action  Is  produced  by  the 
same  forces,  acting  under  the  same  laws,  as 
produce  what  we  commonly  call  physical  action, 
then  surely  the  same  power  that  drives  the 
myriad  wheels  of  that  division  of  nature  with 
which  the  physical  sciences  deal,  must  be  also 
the  cause  (or  why  not  say,  the  Creator?)  of 
vegetable  and  animal  life  in  all  Its  diversified 
manifestations. 

What  light,  then,  is  shed  by  these  manifes- 
tations, upon  the  attributes  of  the  first  cause? 


32  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

IV 

When  a  mass  of  transformed  protoplasm 
that  we  call  a  rose  is  brought  Into  certain  re- 
lations with  another  mass  of  transformed 
protoplasm  that  we  call  an  Intelligent  man,  cer- 
tain phenomena  may  be  observed  to  take  place 
in  the  second  of  these  masses.  Adopting  for 
convenience  the  vulgar  phraseology,  which  in 
this  case  at  least  Is  decidedly  more  compendious 
than  a  strictly  scientific  statement  would  be,  we 
say  that  the  man  sees  the  rose,  and  Inhales  its 
fragrance.  Be  it  so  that  these  operations  are 
purely  physical;  that  the  power  of  sense-percep- 
tion, as  well  as  the  complex  organs  that  con- 
dition its  exercise,  is  the  mere  product  of  the 
action  of  light  and  other  appropriate  stimuli 
upon  inert  matter;  but  unless  the  stream  can 
rise  higher  than  its  source,  It  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that  the  impeller  and  manager  of  these 
stimuli,  beside  possessing  that  intelligence 
which  is  revealed  in  the  operation  of  the  physi- 
cal forces  on  inorganic  substance,  must  have 
also  in  his  nature  something  akin  to  the  per- 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     33 

ceptive  powers  that  he  has  developed  in  the 
products  of  his  skill.  To  suppose  the  con- 
trary, would  be  like  imagining  that  a  man  might 
construct  an  automaton  endowed  not  only  with 
the  same  senses  as  himself,  but  with  others  be- 
side, of  whose  nature  the  contriver  of  the  ap- 
paratus can  form  no  conception.  Let  it  be 
remembered,  too,  that  senses  Inconceivable  to 
us  can  be  Imagined  as  possible;  that  the  material 
universe  may  have  many  more  aspects  than  the 
five  that  we  know  of;  and  hence  that  it  is  at 
least  not  improbable  that  the  senses,  so  to 
speak,  of  the  first  cause  are  many  times  more 
In  number,  as  well  as  more  powerful,  more  deli- 
cate, and  more  accurate,  than  ours. 

V 

The  phenomenon  of  perceiving  the  rose, 
moreover,  is  quickly  followed  by  another  —  the 
appearance  of  a  feeling,  admiration,  in  the  man. 
With  the  nature  and  exact  genesis  of  this  feel- 
ing, we  are  not  at  present  concerned.  Give 
what  account  of  Its  being  one  may,  everybody 
knows  that  it  exists;  and  the  point  to  note  is 


34  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

.  that,  whatever  emotion  may  be,  the  First  Cause 
must  possess  the  capacity  for  it;  else  he  surely 
could  not  develop  It  by  the  action  of  the  laws 
through  which  he  works.  That  Is  to  say,  he 
not  only  knows,  and  can  perceive,  but  he  feels, 
as  well.  And  when  one  reflects  upon  the  depth 
of  meaning  that  the  word  emotion  covers;  or, 
to  restrict  the  field  of  view  and  thus  deepen  the 
Impression,  when  one  weighs  thoughtfully  the 
words  love,  hate,  anger,  fear,  contempt,  grati- 
tude, and  remembers  how  far  the  most  intense 
development  of  any  passion  within  human  ex- 
perience falls  short  of  what  may  easily  be 
Imagined  as  possible  with  a  more  exalted  emo- 
tional constitution,  it  speedily  comes  to  be  per- 
ceived that  we  go  not  as  far  in  our  induction 
as  the  phenomena  plainly  warrant,  if  we  fail  to 
assign  to  the  first  cause  of  these  phenomena  a 
capacity  for  the  exercise  of  what  are  generally 
considered  spiritual  faculties,  unspeakably  ex- 
celling any  such  capacity  that  we  possess,  in 
proportion  perhaps  to  the  difference  between 
man's  puny  muscular  strength  and  the  amazing 
physical  energy  that  reveals  itself  in  the  move- 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     35 

ments  of  the  stellar  systems.  Let  it  be  granted 
in  the  fullest  sense  that  man  and  all  his  facul- 
ties, of  whatever  name  or  kind,  have  been  de- 
veloped by  the  action  of  purely  physical  force 
on  utterly  inert  matter,  precisely  as  a  crystal  is 
built  up  in  a  solution  of  alum;  and  the  inference 
is  irresistible  that  the  originator  of  these  forces, 
the  weaver  who  has  so  arranged  their  innumer- 
able strands  as  to  produce  at  last  the  infinitely 
diversified  web  of  human  feeling,  must  himself 
possess  at  least  the  capacity  for  any  emotion 
that  his  creatures  can  know. 

VI 

There  are  phenomena,  however,  higher  in 
rank  than  those  of  the  emotions.  Beyond  the 
realm  of  aesthetics,  in  the  widest  sense  of  that 
term,  lies  the  domain  of  ethics.  As  much  more 
complicated  as  is  a  feeling  than  a  thought,  so 
much  more  complicated  is  the  sense  of  duty,  the 
appreciation  of  the  word  ought,  than  a  feeling. 
This  highest  class  of  phenomena,  also,  like 
those  of  the  order  next  below  them,  are  now 
traced  back  to  their  ultimate  source  in  the  action 


36  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

of  physical  force;  and  we  need  not  dispute  the 
pedigree.  Let  the  '*  genesis  of  the  conscience  " 
be  accepted  exactly  as  It  Is  described  by  the 
most  "advanced"  philosophers;  let  It  be 
granted  that  the  restraining  power  which  kept 
Casablanca  at  his  post  of  duty  while  the  ship 
burned,  and  the  musicians  playing  on  the  deck 
of  the  Titanic  till  the  waves  engulfed  them ;  and 
the  magnificent  courage  that  nerved  Woodland, 
in  the  Hudson  River  tunnel,  to  order  the  break- 
ing of  the  deadeyes  in  the  air-lock,  certain  to 
bring  instant  suffocation  upon  himself  while 
giving  a  chance  for  the  escape  of  his  subordi- 
nates —  were  simply  the  resultants  of  purely 
physical  force,  in  exactly  the  same  sense  as  is 
the  flight  of  a  cannon-ball  the  consequence  of 
the  explosion  of  the  powder;  and  no  conclusion 
can  be  more  certain  than  this:  That  the  im- 
peller of  physical  force,  the  being  who  works 
out  by  its  operation  such  results  as  these,  must 
himself  possess  the  capacity  for  the  same 
actions  or  for  others  of  still  higher  grandeur. 
That  is  to  say,  the  Power  that  has  produced  the 
moral  sensibility  of  mankind,  no  matter  by  what 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     37 

means,  and  no  matter  what  that  sensibility  Is, 
must  himself  feel  the  distinction  between  noble 
deeds  and  base,  between  good  and  evil.  He 
must  be  endowed,  not  only  with  Intellectual  and 
aesthetic  faculties,  but  with  the  highest  of  all,  a 
moral  nature. 

VII 

A  single  point  remains  for  consideration. 
What  sort  of  a  moral  nature  Is  it  that  the 
First  Cause  possesses?  What  kind  of  passions 
sway  his  will?  Are  his  purposes  toward  the 
sentient  products  of  the  operation  of  his  laws, 
benevolent  or  the  reverse  ?  There  is  any  quan- 
tity of  Indisputable  evil  In  the  world.  Physical 
pain  Is  almost  co-extensive  with  the  capacity  for 
suffering  it;  tastes  are  daily  offended,  feelings 
are  wounded,  the  sense  of  equity  Is  shocked,  just 
and  reasonable  hopes  are  disappointed,  good 
deeds  bring  mischief  on  those  who  do  them, 
crime  is  Incessant  and  the  guilty  flourish,  while 
the  innocent  languish  under  calamity.  If,  then, 
the  occasional  performance  of  a  self-sacrificing 
act  under  a  sense  of  duty,  is  evidence  that  the 


38  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

First  Cause  appreciates  what  we  mean  by  the 
word  ought,  and  finds  satisfaction  in  the  realiza- 
tion oT  the  ideas  that  that  word  embodies,  Is 
not  the  daily  commission  of  all  manner  of  In- 
iquity evidence  that  It  —  or  He  —  has  also  a 
certain  sympathy  with  the  reckless  indulgence 
of  selfish  and  malevolent  passions?  Can  we  by 
any  means  determine  whether  these  feelings,  or 
those  that  we  call  morally  good,  preponderate 
in  his  nature? 

The  answer  to  these  questions  must  be  sought, 
it  would  seem,  In  a  broad  study  of  the  history 
of  the  human  race.  To  the  ultimate  benefit  of 
mankind,  It  Is  plainly  reasonable  that  the  pros- 
perity of  all  other  orders  of  finite  Intelligences, 
so  far  as  we  know  them,  should  be  subordi- 
nated. If  the  general  effect  of  the  operation 
of  physical  laws  through  the  ages  of  develop- 
ment, past,  present  and  future,  is,  on  the  whole, 
to  build  up  and  establish  a  high  and  ever  higher 
type  of  manhood,  so  adjusted  withal  to  Its  en- 
vironment as  to  secure  a  great  and  ever-increas- 
ing degree  of  happiness,  then  surely  the  con- 
clusion must  be  accepted  that  the  First  Cause 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     39 

is  benevolent  —  sympathizes,  in  other  words, 
with  good,  and  wars  eternally  with  evil.  If 
natural  law  does  work,  on  the  whole,  in  this 
direction,  no  labor  need  be  taken  to  account  for 
the  existence  of  pains  and  sorrow.  Many  sup- 
positions will  answer.  It  may  be  that  the  high- 
est good  might  not  otherwise  be  attained;  it 
may  be,  as  the  Manicheans  held  (with  a  very 
considerable  show  of  reason,  the  present  writer 
thinks)  that  the  First  Cause  could  not  help  the 
intrusion  of  evil  but  would  have  all  men  to  be 
saved  from  everything  that  hurts  them,  if  he 
had  his  unobstructed  way;  it  may  be  that  the 
evil  is  not  really  so  evil  as  we  think  it,  but  has 
a  good  side  after  all,  possibly  disciplinary,  that 
we  know  not  of.  Or,  and  as  I  think  wisest  of 
all,  we  may  well  be  satisfied  to  take  the  calmly 
scientific  view  here  as  in  many  other  depart- 
ments of  thought,  especially  in  the  physical 
sciences,  that  we  frankly  admit  our  inability  to 
understand  much  that  we  are  compelled  to  ac- 
cept as  true. 

But  if  humanity  is  not  developing,  improving, 
and  increasing  in  happiness  through  the  ages, 


40  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

it  does  not  appear  that  we  are  justified  in  as- 
signing to  the  First  Cause  a  nature  much  more 
kindly  or  more  elevated,  morally  speaking,  than 
our  own;  good  traits  and  evil  can  both  be  dis- 
cerned, and  which  class  preponderates  we  know 
not. 

If,  again,  men  are  growing  worse  and  more 
wretched,  how  can  the  conclusion  be  avoided 
that  their  Creator,  judging  Him  from  such  of 
His  works  as  we  see  and  know,  is  inclined  to 
moral  evil  and  pursues  vicious  ends? 

In  which  direction,  then,  is  our  race  tending? 
Shall  we  seek  for  traditions  of  a  golden  age 
among  the  fading  records  of  the  far-off  past, 
or  expect  the  coming  of  our  halcyon  days  in 
the  yet  remote  fuUire?  Was  the  highly  uhor- 
thodox  Gibbon  on  firm  ground  in  reaching  — 
at  the  close  of  the  second  volume  of  his  monu- 
mental work,  after  taking  an  extensive  survey 
of  human  history  with  a  breadth  of  view  cer- 
tainly never  surpassed  and  perhaps  never 
equalled  —  what  he  calls  "the  pleasing  conclu- 
sion that  every  age  of  the  world  has  increased 
and  still  increases  the  real  wealth,  the  happi- 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     41 

ness,  the  knowledge,  and  perhaps  the  virtue,  of 
the  human  race"?  Let  sociology  answer  — 
the  *'  science  in  which,"  according  to  its  greatest 
exponent,  "  the  phenomena  of  all  other  sciences 
are  included." 

In  the  book  from  which  the  above  phrase  is 
taken,  Spencer's  "  Study  of  Sociology  " —  not 
to  explore  further  the  writings  of  that  deep  and 
clear  thinker  —  the  expectation  of  a  constant 
improvement  in  human  character,  and  a  con- 
stant diminution  of  the  present  miseries  of  life, 
is  manifestly  before  the  writer's  mind  from  be- 
ginning to  end — "the  conception,"  to  use  his 
own  words,  "  that  the  remote  future  has  in  store 
forms  of  social  life  higher  than  any  we  have 
imagined."  Nowhere  explicitly  formulated  as 
the  author's  opinion,  this  belief  is  everywhere 
taken  for  granted,  and  colors  every  chapter. 
Thus  we  are  told,  in  regard  to  man's  expected 
moral  improvement,  that  "  a  civilized  humanity 
will  render  either  glory  "  [that  of  proudly  re- 
sisting aggression  and  that  of  meekly  submit- 
ting to  it]  "  impossible  of  achievement.  A  di- 
minishing  egoism   and  an   increasing   altruism 


42  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

must  make  each  of  these  diverse  kinds  of  honor 
unattainable.  Along  with  a  latent  self-asser- 
tion, there  will  go  a  readiness  to  yield  to  others, 
kept  in  check  by  the  refusal  of  others  to  ac- 
cept more  than  their  due."  "  There  has  to  be 
a  continually-changing  compromise  between 
force  and  right,  during  which  force  decreases 
step  by  step  as  right  increases  step  by  step,  and 
.  .  .  every  step  brings  .  .  .  ultimate  good." 
A  time  is  looked  for  when  social  discipline  shall 
have  "  so  far  modified  human  character  that 
reverence  for  law,  as  rooted  in  the  moral  order 
of  things,  will  serve  in  place  of  reverence  for 
the  power  which  enforces  law."  "  Those  of 
our  own  day  who  pride  themselves  in  consum- 
ing much  and  producing  nothing,  and  who  care 
little  for  the  well-being  of  their  society  so  long 
as  it  supplies  them  good  dinners,  soft  beds,  and 
pleasant  lounging-places,  may  be  regarded  with 
astonishment  by  men  of  times  to  come,  living 
under  higher  social  forms.  ...  It  will  become 
a  matter  of  wonder  that  there  should  ever  have 
existed  those  who  thought  it  admirable  to  enjoy 
without  working,  at  the  expense  of  others  who 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     43 

worked  without  enjoying."  And  with  respect 
to  happiness,  it  is  hinted  '*  that  after  tens  of 
thousands  of  years  of  discipline,  the  lives  of 
men  in  society  [will]  have  become  harmonious; 
character  and  conditions  [wiW]  have,  little  by 
little,  grown  into  adjustment,''  so  that  one  will 
always  like  to  do  what  he  ought  to  do,  inclina- 
tion and  duty  going  hand  in  hand,  and  all  action 
will  have  become  pleasurable. 

If  it  is  really  to  this  end  that  development 
is  tending,  how  can  it  be  doubted  that  the  Crea- 
tor seeks  the  good  of  His  creatures,  takes  sat- 
isfaction in  the  conjunction  of  virtuous  actions 
and  that  happiness  which  we  all  feel  ought  to 
be  their  certain  reward,  and  hence  is  in  His 
essential  nature  benevolent?  The  deductions 
of  sociology  may  thus  be  fairly  considered  as 
supplementing  the  teachings  of  an  old  Hebrew 
poem — *'  he  that  planted  the  ear,  shall  he  not 
hear?  he  that  formed  the  eye,  shall  he  not 
see  ?  he  that  teacheth  man  knowledge,  shall  not 
he  know?" — with  the  further  lesson  that  he 
who  inspires  good  deeds  is  himself  good. 

And  if  it  be  said  that,  after  all,  we  can  glean 


44  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

only  vague  Intimations  of  the  moral  character 
of  the  First  Cause  from  the  most  advanced  so- 
ciology —  as  indeed  we  glean  only  vague  inti- 
mations of  His  power,  His  knowledge,  and  His 
perceptive  and  emotional  faculties  from  the 
study  of  physical  law  and  human  character  — 
it  may  not  be  amiss  to  reflect  that  another  He- 
brew writer,  thousands  of  years  ago,  had  al- 
ready asked:  "  Canst  thou  by  searching  find 
out  God?  Canst  thou  find  out  the  Almighty 
unto  perfection?  It  is  as  high  as  heaven;  what 
canst  thou  do?  deeper  than  hell;  what  canst 
thou  know?  "  ^  Science  therefore  adopts  only 
the  same  conclusion  as  do  the  sacred  books  of 
the  ancient  Jews,  when  It  tells  us  that  If  man  Is 
ever  fully  to  know  God,  it  must  be  by  means 
of  a  revelation. 

VIII 

Just  a  word,  by  way  of  corollary,  on  the 
vexed,  and  sometimes  muddled,  subject  of  mira- 
cles.    For  those  who  conceive  of  the  universe  as 

1  Whence,  by  the  way,  had  this  man  this  wisdom,  living 
8o  many  centuries  before  "  the  philosopher  of  the  unknow- 
able "  was  born? 


THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LAW     45 

a  sort  of  clock,  wKich  may  perhaps  have  been 
adjusted,  wound  up  and  started  by  some  out- 
side agency,  but  which  now  runs  by  a  power 
within  Itself  quite  Independent  of  the  maker 
and  winder  (confusing  law  with  force,  and 
making  of  It  a  kind  of  mainspring) ,  It  may  In- 
deed be  difficult  to  believe  that  there  Is  ever 
any  Interference  with  the  rotation  of  the  wheels. 
One  Is  strongly  Inclined  to  reason  that  when  a 
mechanism  has  been  laboriously  constructed  to 
run  regularly,  It  is  thereafter  likely  to  be  let 
alone.  But  as  soon  as  It  Is  perceived  that  the 
movements  of  the  universe  more  closely  resem- 
ble those  of  the  fingers  of  the  pianist,  Impelled 
at  all  times  by  direct  volition,  and  having  a  liv- 
ing personality  ever  present  within  them  —  the 
law  in  accordance  with  which  they  occur  having 
really  no  more  objective  existence  than  has  the 
melody  which  the  musician  Is  playing  —  it  be- 
comes easily  conceivable,  no  matter  how  long 
regularity  may  have  continued,  that  an  occa- 
sional variation  may  at  any  time  be  Introduced, 
If  only  there  arise  a  reason  for  such  change. 
And  Is  there  no  reason  for  an  occasional  ir- 


46  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

regularity  In  the  movements  of  the  physical 
world?  Will  not  the  intelligent  Father  of  All 
desire,  in  the  progress  of  the  ages,  to  reveal 
Himself  (since  science  supports  theology  in  the 
inculcation  that  of  themselves  they  can  never 
wholly  find  Him  out)  to  His  intelligent  chil- 
dren? And  if  He  is  so  to  reveal  Himself,  how, 
without  miracles,  could  the  revelation  be  satis- 
factorily attested?  How  indeed,  without  mira- 
cles, could  a  real  revelation  ever  be  made  at 
all? 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  THAT  NEEDS 
EXPLAINING 

IF  ever  a  literary  composition  was  wounded  in 
the  house  of  its  friends,  was  not  only  so  put 
before  the  public  as  to  make  it  as  little  inviting 
as  possible  to  the  general  reader,  and  as  liable 
as  possible  to  every  kind  of  disadvantageous 
misapprehension,  but  also  was  commended  to 
attention  in  such  ill-judged  fashion  as  to  make 
sure  of  exciting  antipathy,  that  composition  is 
certainly  the  Bible.  It  is  printed,  in  the  vast 
majority  of  editions  in  most  modern  languages, 
in  a  manner  which  could  hardly  have  been  bet- 
ter calculated  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  easy 
and  appreciative  reading.  Everything  is  set 
just  alike,  whether  prose  or  poetry,  idyl  or 
drama,  which  is  bad  enough  —  if  anybody  wants 
to  appreciate  how  bad,  let  him  give  five  minutes 
to  the  Ferrar  Fenton  version,  and  see  with  what 
amazing  emphasis  the  varieties  of  structure  and 

47 


48  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

purpose  of  the  different  kinds  of  writing  are 
brought  instantly  to  his  notice  by  the  varied 
typography.  This  however  is  only  the  begin- 
ning of  the  maltreatment  to  which  the  book  has 
been  subjected.  The  matter  is  chopped  up, 
first  into  "  chapters,"  generally  of  what  seems 
to  be  Intended  as  approximately  uniform  length, 
with  little  regard  to  continuity  of  thought  or 
story,  these  chapters  marked  off  by  broad 
spaces,  big  numbers,  and  in  many  cases  an  elab- 
orate and  often  impertinent  and  useless  sum- 
mary, not  seldom  including  matter  of  the  na- 
ture of  commentary,  forcing  upon  the  reader 
somebody's  ex-cathedra  interpretation  of  what 
may  be  a  very  obscure  and  doubtful  passage 
on  which  there  is  abundant  room  for  difference 
of  opinion.  A  device  better  adapted  to  dis- 
tract attention  and  discourage  consecutive  read- 
ing, actually  Inviting  you  to  lay  down  the  book 
every  ten  minutes,  could  hardly  be  conceived. 
The  chapters  are  then  chopped  up  Into 
"  verses,"  still  further  Interfering  with  con- 
nected thought,  often  separating  closely  allied 
clauses,  sometimes  combining  two  or  more  dis- 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  49 

tinct  matters  that  should  not  be  fused  together. 
Not  satisfied  with  these  serious  Impediments  to 
any  sort  of  agreeable  and  thoughtful  perusal, 
the  editors  of  the  larger  editions  have  often 
gone  much  farther.  They  have  plowed  a  fur- 
row down  the  middle  of  the  page,  or  added  an 
ugly  fringe  on  each  side,  getting  in  a  quantity 
of  notes  of  one  sort  and  another,  ''  references  '* 
and  the  like,  and  sprinkled  the  text  freely  with 
little  letters,  numbers,  and  cabalistic  signs,  dis- 
tracting to  the  eye  and  the  attention.  I  do  not 
say  that  these  features  are  always  useless;  quite 
the  contrary;  so7ne  readers,  for  some  purposes, 
need  them.  But  then  —  Imagine  any  other 
great  composition  presented  to  the  general 
reader  In  such  shape!  Who  does  not  see  the 
heavy  handicap  It  would  have  to  bear  in  win- 
ning attention? 

It  is  doubtless  due  in  no  small  measure  to  the 
style  of  printing  adopted,  that  so  few  people 
read  the  Bible  as  they  read  other  books,  really 
trying  to  understand  the  author's  point  of  view 
and  to  follow  and  weigh  his  thought.  It  has 
been  turned  into  a  sort  of  fetich  or  sibylline 


50  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

oracle,  a  collection  of  statements  of  about  equal 
authority  and  importance,  every  one  to  be 
taken  blindly  and  literally  at  what  appears  at 
first  sight  to  be  its  significance,  and  a  certain 
portion  to  be  waded  through  per  diem  as  a  re- 
ligious duty,  without  taking  the  trouble  to  make 
any  endeavor  at  putting  it  Into  Its  proper  mental 
setting,  to  consider  the  personality  or  circum- 
stances of  the  writer  or  speaker,  or  the  connec- 
tion of  what  he  Is  saying  in  one  place  with 
something  that  he  says  over  the  leaf.  So  you 
read  so  many  chapters,  however  unintelligently 
and  unsympathetically,  you  must  of  course  re- 
ceive spiritual  benefit!  The  endless  genealo- 
gies; the  elaborate  geographical  details  of  the 
partition  of  Canaan  among  the  tribes;  the 
twice-told  story  of  the  beginning  of  vegetable 
and  animal  life,  In  Genesis;  the  offerings  of  the 
princes  at  the  dedication  of  the  tabernacle  (de- 
tailed at  length  for  the  first  man,  and  eleven 
times  repeated,  word  for  word)  ;  the  books  of 
Esther  and  Solomon's  Song;  the  mysterious  im- 
agery of  the  prophets,  like  Ezekiel's  wheel  and 
Daniel's  numbers,  largely  unintelligible  to  mod- 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  51 

ern,  or  at  least  to  occidental,  readers  —  have 
come  to  stand,  in  the  minds  of  many  good  peo- 
ple, on  about  the  same  level  as  the  Fifty-First 
Psalm  or  the  Sixtieth  Chapter  of  Isaiah  or  the 
opening  of  John's  Gospel.  We  have,  it  is  to 
be  hoped,  outgrown  the  superstition  of  opening 
the  book  at  random  and  taking  the  first  pas- 
sage that  meets  the  eye  as  an  answer  to  a  ques- 
tion of  conscience  or  duty;  but  honestly,  do  we 
give  the  Bible  very  much  better  intellectual 
treatment,  all  things  considered,  than  if  we  still 
used  it  for  such  unworthy  and  nonsensical  pur- 
poses? 

That  the  Bible  often,  generally,  is  read  in  a 
hap-hazard,  inattentive,  unprofitable  fashion, 
a  fashion  in  which  no  other  important  book  is 
read  by  anybody  who  reads  it  at  all,  can  easily 
be  established  by  asking  as  many  religious  peo- 
ple as  you  like  whether  they  have  ever  noticed 
any  of  the  cases,  happily  very  few,  of  careless 
editing  or  clear  blundering  by  some  ancient 
transcriber,  as  in  Luke  xvi,  18,  where  a  sen- 
tence has  been  pitchforked  into  a  place  where 
it  is  hardly  possible  to  suppose  that  it  belongs; 


52  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

or  as  In  the  mix-up  in  Job  by  which  we  lose  the 
final  speech  that  Zophar  must  have  been  de- 
scribed as  making,  the  writer  of  the  drama  hav- 
ing doubtless  intended  to  give  each  of  the  com- 
forters three  addresses  in  regular  turn,  Job  an- 
swering them  one  by  one;  or  the  seemingly 
useless  repetition  of  II  Samuel  xxii,  in  Psalm 
xviii;  of  II  Kings  xix.  In  Isaiah  xxxvll;  of  II 
Kings  XXV,  in  Jeremiah  xxxix  and  again  in  Jere- 
miah Hi;  of  Joshua  xv,  15-19,  in  Judges  I,  11-15. 
Cases  of  confusion  or  vain  duplication  like 
these  could  hardly  occur  in  any  other  serious 
book  without  being  detected  by  readers  gener- 
ally; printed  as  is  the  Bible,  and  read,  very 
often.  In  a  fashion  to  agree  with  the  printing, 
it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  they  would  be  no- 
ticed. Not,  of  course,  that  It  Is  really  of  vital 
consequence  whether  such  peculiarities  are  ob- 
served or  not;  but  what  is  of  vital  consequence 
is  the  general  habit  of  careless  reading  that, 
passing  these  blemishes  by,  Is  certain  to  pass 
by  also  relations  of  thought  that  are  entirely  in- 
dispensable to  any  kind  of  Intelligent  apprecia- 
tion of  the  real  purport  of  the  greatest  books 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  53 

of  the  canon.  For  one  who  really  desires  to 
understand  such  writings,  It  Is  plainly  better, 
far  better,  not  to  touch  them  for  a  month,  and 
then  read  deliberately  a  whole  book  through 
at  a  sitting  If  possible,  or  at  least  read  at  one 
sitting  the  equivalent  of  many  Bible  chapters, 
than  to  read  dally  a  certain  limited  stint,  stop- 
ping short  wR^ere  somebody  has  put  In  a  chap- 
ter heading.  For  such  deliberate  reading, 
the  whole  style  of  typography  of  the  enormous 
majority  of  popular  editions  is  just  about  as 
badly  devised  as  It  is  possible  to  Imagine;  and 
thus,  in  Its  appeal  for  intelligent  consideration, 
the  book  Is  heavily  handicapped. 

And  then  again,  the  fetich  Idea,  beside  re- 
sulting In  a  deplorable  loss  of  all  sense  of 
values  and  proportions,  has  brought  about  a  lot 
of  more  than  useless  discussion  over  trivialities, 
diverting  attention  badly  from  the  real  purposes 
of  the  writers.  How  can  the  debates  in  Job,  or 
the  deep  philosophy  of  Ecclesiastes,  or  the 
great  lessons  that  the  author  of  Jonah  wanted 
to  teach,  be  appreciated  by  readers  who  do  not 
perceive  that  the  incidents,  whether  they  ever  oc- 


54  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

curred  or  not,  are  simply  used  as  pegs  on  which 
to  hang  the  discourses,  but  suppose,  instead, 
that  one  must  either  accept  the  unprovable  and 
utterly  immaterial  historicity  of  these  books  or 
reject  them  altogether?  It  has  been  well  said 
that  the  authors  undoubtedly  expected  their 
readers  to  exercise  some  commonsense;  and  as 
this  exercise  is  unquestionably  seriously  impeded 
by  the  way  in  which  their  writings  are  presented 
to  the  public,  both  in  typographical  arrange- 
ment and  in  the  sense  in  which  many  people 
who  are  supposed  to  speak  with  authority  in- 
sist that  they  must  be  taken,  it  is  plain  that  the 
authors'  purpose  is  largely  defeated  and  that 
their  work  must  suffer  from  being  misunder- 
stood and  therefore  undervalued. 

Then  further,  a  more  serious  matter  still: 
Certain  portions  of  the  Bible  which  are  plainly 
Intended  as  historical  are  open  to  at  least  two 
kinds  of  reasonable  and  unfavorable  criticism 
that  cannot  be  answered  by  supposing  transcrip- 
tional errors.  The  real  difficulties  In  the  way 
of  harmonizing  its  different  parts  and  making 
what  seem  at  first  sight  to  be  its  clear  teachings 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  55 

commend  themselves  to  an  enlightened  mind  and 
conscience,  are  great  and  many,  quite  sufficient, 
as  doubtless  most  intelligent  persons  are  now 
agreed,  to  negative  absolutely  the  supposition 
once  widely  held  (though  without  the  smallest 
justification  in  any  claim  put  forward  by  the 
book  itself)  that  every  line  was  dictated  ver- 
batim by  the  Creator  of  the  universe,  the  writ- 
ers acting  as  scribes  only,  but  infallible  scribes 

—  the  view  expressed  in  a  well  known  work  on 
"  Inspiration  and  Interpretation  "  in  the  follow- 
ing explicit  terms: 

"  The  Bible  Is  none  other  than  the  Voice  of  Him 
that  sitteth  upon  the  Throne.  Every  book  of  it  — 
every  chapter  of  it  —  every  verse  of  it  —  every  word 
of  it  —  every  syllable  of  it —  (Where  are  we  to  stop?) 

—  every  letter  of  it  —  is  the  direct  utterance  of  the 
Most  High.  The  Bible  is  none  other  than  the  Word 
of  God,  not  some  part  of  it  more,  some  part  of  it  less, 
but  all  alike,  the  utterance  of  Him  who  sitteth  upon 
the  Throne,  absolute,  faultless,  unerring,  supreme." 

One  would  like  to  ask  the  writers  of  the 
above  and  similar  declarations  what  they  really 
and  honestly  think  of  the  stories  of  the  making 


S6  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

of  Eve,  and  of  the  animals  In  the  ark;  of  the 
participation  of  the  Egyptian  cattle  In  the  suf- 
ferings of  the  sixth,  seventh  and  tenth  plagues 
after  "  all  the  cattle  of  Egypt  "  had  died  In 
the  fifth;  of  the  many  Incidents  In  the  Exodus 
(not  Including  anything  obviously  Intended  as 
miraculous)  that  really  seem,  after  a  little 
thoughtful  figuring,  entirely  Incredible;  of  the 
awful  cruelties,  said  to  have  been  divinely  com- 
manded, that  marked  the  Jewish  conquest  of 
Canaan;  of  the  amazingly  naive  statement  in 
Judges  I,  19  that  "the  Lord  was  with  Judah, 
and  he  drave  out  the  Inhabitants  of  the  moun- 
tain, but  could  not  drive  out  the  Inhabitants 
of  the  valley,  because  they  had  chariots  of 
iron''  (!),  or  of  the  apparent  recognition  of 
what  was  practically  idolatry  and  debasing  su- 
perstition, In  many  passages  of  the  same  book; 
of  the  manifest  Inconsistency  In  the  story  of 
Balaam,  against  whom  God's  anger  was  kin- 
dled because  he  went  with  the  messengers  of 
the  king  after  having  been  divinely  commanded 
to  do  so;  of  several  trifling  Inaccuracies  In 
history  in  the  Gospels,  Including  Luke's  (prob- 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  57 

ably  interpolated)  genealogy  of  Christ  —  very 
trifling  inaccuracies,  to  be  sure,  but  quite  incon- 
sistent with  the  notion  that  "  every  word  "  was 
divinely  inspired  exactly  as  we  have  it;  of  the 
incomprehensible  parable  of  the  unjust  stew- 
ard; or  of  the  list  of  the  twelve  tribes  in  Rev. 
vii,  5,  where  Dan  is  omitted,  and  Joseph  and 
Manasseh  (father  and  son,  not  Ephraim  and 
Manasseh,  brothers,  as  in  Numbers  i,  10)  fig- 
ure as  the  heads  of  separate  tribes. 

It  is  perfectly  evident,  surely,  that  insistence 
on  any  such  view  of  the  writing  of  the  Bible  as 
that  held  by  the  author  above  quoted,  and  for- 
merly, if  not  even  now,  very  familiar  to  the 
general  public,  must  act  as  a  powerful  deterrent 
to  the  circulation  of  the  book.  If  it  is  all  fool- 
ishness, and  impious  foolishness  besides,  to  read 
it  as  one  reads  other  serious  treatises  that  are 
supposed  to  have  important  practical  bearing 
on  one's  daily  life  —  to  read  it,  that  is  to  say, 
with  constant  questioning  as  to  its  accuracy  in 
statement  and  its  reasonableness  in  doctrine  — 
it  would  seem  too  much  to  expect  of  the  great 
majority  of  men  that  they  read  it  at  all.     If  it 


58  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

Is  a  choice  between  reading  with  full  antecedent 
and  Implicit  belief  In  the  plenary  Inspiration  of 
"  every  letter,"  and  neglecting  It  in  toto,  one 
can  easily  forecast  the  choice  that  thousands  of 
very  Intelligent  and  thoughtful  people  will 
make. 

Then  further,  It  must  be  noted  that  some 
portions  of  the  Bible,  which  cannot  properly 
be  called  obscene,  the  Innocent  Intention  of  the 
writer  being  perfectly  evident,  are  nevertheless, 
judged  by  our  present  standards,  highly  Indeli- 
cate and  unpleasant  —  a  drop  In  the  bucket  to 
be  sure,  but  still  not  quite  negligible.  I  do  not 
speak  of  what  seems  In  this  age  mere  coarse- 
ness of  expression,  ways  of  saying  things  that 
can  be  Improved,  as  in  many  cases  they  are  im- 
proved in  the  latest  versions,  by  making  a  not- 
qulte-llteral  translation;  but  of  such  matter  as 
the  origin  of  the  tribes  of  Moab  and  Ammon; 
the  stories  of  the  two  unhappy  Tamars  and  of 
the  Levlte  of  Mount  Ephralm;  of  certain  pro- 
ceedings of  Absalom  during  David's  exile;  of 
a  revolting  piece  of  symbolism  that  is  said  to 
have   been   divinely   enjoined   on   the   Prophet 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  59 

Ezekiel;  of  several  whole  pages  In  the  mysteri- 
ous book  of  that  great  preacher;  and  of  the  be- 
ginning of  Hosea.  Surely  it  is  clear  that  the 
inclusion  of  matter  that  cannot  be  read  aloud 
in  mixed  company,  and  matter  that  nobody 
would  willingly  place  in  the  hands  of  young 
people,  must  weigh  heavily  against  the  circula- 
tion of  a  book  that  has  no  other  claim  to  atten- 
tion than  that  it  deals  seriously  and  authorita- 
tively with  great  spiritual  problems. 

And  yet,  with  these  and  other  handicaps  in 
the  way  of  securing  the  general  reading  of  the 
Bible,  how  that  book  does  sell!  It  has  been 
translated  complete  into  about  a  hundred  and 
twenty  languages,  and  portions  of  It  into  more 
than  five  hundred.  The  total  issue  of  Bibles 
and  parts  of  Bibles  must  be,  according  to  the 
best  compilation  of  figures  possible,  certainly 
not  less  than  eighteen  millions,  probably  nine- 
teen millions  or  more,  per  annum.  How  the 
issues  of  any  other  book,  of  any  other  dozen 
books,  one  might  almost  say  any  other  hundred 
books,  sink  into  Insignificance  in  comparison ! 

Nor  does  It,  I  think,  help  much  in  explaining 


6o  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

the  unapproached  popularity  of  the  Bible  as 
compared  with  other  books,  to  point  out  that 
its  enormous  circulation  is  to  a  considerable  de- 
gree forced  —  that  it  is  offered  very  cheaply, 
often  gratuitously,  and  that  people  are  gener- 
ally entreated  to  read  it  as  a  duty.  This  only 
puts  the  problem  a  step  back.  Why  do  mil- 
lions of  thoughtful  men  and  women  urge  the 
reading  of  the  Bible,  and  unite  themselves  in 
societies  that  spend  vast  amounts  of  money  in 
printing  it  in  every  tongue  under  heaven,  offer- 
ing it  without  money  or  price  to  those  who 
cannot  pay  for  it,  and  placing  it  in  all  sorts  of 
public  and  semi-public  rooms,  that  the  wayfarer 
may  be  tempted  to  pick  it  up  in  odd  moments? 
Has  anybody  ever  thought  it  worth  while  to 
press,  in  any  such  manner,  the  circulation  of  any 
other  book  ever  written?  I  do  not,  of  course, 
forget  the  general  teaching  of  the  Koran  among 
Mohammedans  or  of  the  writings  of  Confucius 
and  his  followers  among  the  Chinese;  but  the 
case  is  not  parallel,  because  these  works  con- 
stitute practically  the  entire  classical  literature 
of  the  peoples  among  whom  they  are  circulated; 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  6i 

and  there  Is  really  nothing  else  for  the  teachers 
to  teach,  the  teachers  being  what  they  are.  And 
beside  all  this,  Bibles  are  printed  and  sold  as 
a  cold-blooded  matter  of  business  for  profit,  In 
far  larger  numbers  than  may  generally  be  sup- 
posed. I  received,  while  writing  this  chapter, 
the  catalog  of  one  of  several  American  pub- 
lishers engaged  In  producing  Bibles  commer- 
cially, which  illustrates  the  extent  of  the  busi- 
ness. It  Is  a  pamphlet  of  68  octavo  pages, 
handsomely  printed  in  red  and  black  and 
adorned  with  a  number  of  engravings,  and  de- 
scribes a  bewildering  variety  of  styles,  nearly 
two  hundred  In  all,  I  should  say.  A  ''  confi- 
dential "  circular  to  representatives  Is  included, 
setting  forth  *'  the  great  possibilities  in  the  Bible 
business  "  and  beginning  with  the  undoubtedly 
truthful  statement,  made  for  a  business  purpose 
as  It  Is,  that  "  for  many  years  the  Interest  In 
Bible  study  has  been  increasing  rapidly."  The 
cover  gives  pictures  of  a  number  of  large  rooms 
apparently  devoted  exclusively  to  Bible-making. 
While  publishers  find  it  profitable  to  go  into 
the  business  to  such  an  extent,  too  much  impor- 


62  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

tance  should  not  be  attached  to  the  matter  of 
forced  and  gratuitous  circulation.  Fancy  any- 
body offering  to  the  general  public,  In  some- 
thing like  two  hundred  different  styles,  any 
other  book  that  ever  was  written,  and  making 
really  a  big  business  of  selling  It! 

It  is  submitted,  then,  that  the  vast  circula- 
tion of  the  Bible  among  the  most  Intelligent  na- 
tions of  the  earth,  nearly  two  thousand  years 
after  Its  latest  line  was  written,  a  circulation 
maintained  In  the  face  of  special  difficulties  of 
formidable  nature,  is  distinctly  a  phenomenon 
that  invites  attention  and  challenges  inquiry. 
How  Is  it  to  be  accounted  for?  It  is  surely 
safe  to  reply,  generally  speaking,  that  this  book 
lives  and  spreads  because  it  supplies  an  impera- 
tive demand  of  human  nature,  and  in  the  last 
analysis,  for  no  other  reason.  But  how  comes 
It  that  there  is  such  a  demand,  and  that  this 
book  meets  It?  That  is  the  crux  of  the  matter; 
and  I  wish  that  the  reader,  if  he  believes  the 
Bible  to  be  inspired  in  only  the  same  sense  as 
applies  to  other  books,  would  pause  here  a  mo- 
ment, and  ask  himself  what  answers  he  can  think 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  63 

of.  (I  say  ask  himself,  because  he  will  find 
It  wasting  time  and  trouble  to  search  the  litera- 
ture that  has  been  laboriously  developed  by 
writers  of  his  way  of  thinking,  for  any  sug- 
gestion of  value  on  this  particular  point.)  If 
no  explanation  occurs  to  him  that  seems  quite 
to  fit  the  facts  of  the  case  and  at  the  same  time 
harmonize  with  his  opinions  of  the  authorship 
and  authority  of  the  Jewish-Christian  Scriptures, 
let  him  consider  this  hypothesis:  That  the 
book,  while  not  very  accurately  described  as  a 
revelation  from  our  maker,  is  nevertheless  the 
record  of  such  a  revelation,  a  record  written 
by  men  who  were  subject  to  every  kind  of  hu- 
man frailty  and  error,  but  still  unmistakably 
such  a  record  of  a  revelation  as  appeals  Irre- 
sistibly by  its  own  force  to  the  minds  as  well  as 
the  hearts  and  consciences  of  mankind,  with  in- 
finitely greater  power  than  can  possibly  be 
claimed  for  any  other  writing  whatsoever.  It 
seems  to  me  that  this  explanation  meets  com- 
pletely the  demands  of  the  spirit  of  rigidly  scien- 
tific inquiry.  As  the  somewhat  "  unorthodox  " 
Dr.  Robertson  Smith  (who  rejects  the  supposed 


64  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

application  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth  of  the  so-called 
messianic  portions  of  Isaiah)  well  expresses  it: 
**  It  is  not  and  cannot  be  denied  that  the  proph- 
ets found  for  themselves  and  their  nation  a 
knowledge  of  God,  and  not  a  mere  speculative 
knowledge,  but  a  practical  fellowship  of  faith 
with  him,  which  the  seekers  of  truth  among  the 
Gentiles  never  attained  to."  Surely  the  same 
may  be  said  —  not  to  speak  of  the  clear  white 
light  of  most  of  the  New  Testament  —  of  the 
authors  of  Job  and  Ecclesiastes,  and  preemi- 
nently of  the  Psalmists.  Think  what  one  may 
of  the  so-called  "  imprecatory  "  Psalms,  it  will 
hardly,  I  suppose,  be  denied  in  any  quarter  that 
their  book  as  a  whole  reveals  a  grasp  of  the 
character  of  the  Creator  which  fully  meets  man's 
highest  conception  and  longing,  and  which  is 
quite  without  parallel  in  the  whole  range  of  the 
voluminous  literature  of  spiritual  aspiration  out- 
side the  Bible.  Not  less  strikingly  character- 
istic is  the  monotheism  of  the  Old  Testament, 
monotheism  so  evidently  ingrained  in  all  the 
thinking  of  its  authors  that  the  use,  in  a  few 
places  in  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis,  of  plural 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  6^ 

words  referring  to  the  Creator,  hardly  needs 
explanation.  And  note  the  character  of  the 
monotheism  of  even  the  earliest  books  of  the 
canon,  the  grandeur  of  the  conception  of  the 
nature  of  the  one  God  whose  unique  existence  Is 
everywhere  assumed.  Genius  would  strive  In 
vain,  It  seems  to  me,  to  express  now  In  many 
words  such  an  apprehension  of  a  self-existent, 
eternal,  majestic  Creator  as  Is  embodied  In  the 
brief  phrase  In  Exodus:  "I  AM  hath  sent 
me."  That  Creator,  omnipotent,  omniscient, 
omnipresent,  just,  merciful,  good,  Is  seen 
clearly  enough  through  all  the  mists  of  even 
childishly  anthropomorphic  figure,  all  the  mis- 
apprehensions and  errors  of  the  fallible  men 
who  wrote  these  wonderful  books,  and  whose 
very  blunders  are  enough  to  show  pretty  con- 
clusively that  they  could  not  possibly  have  in- 
vented the  being  whom  they  describe  (if  we 
take  their  writings  at  what  seems  to  be  their 
surface  meaning)  so  inadequately  and  unsatis- 
factorily. 

But  man's  highest  nature  demands,   for  Its 
enlightenment  and  guidance,  more  than  knowl- 


ee  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

edge  of  our  Maker,  even  supposing  such 
knowledge  to  be  as  full  as  our  minds,  In  their 
present  condition  of  development,  are  capable 
of  apprehending.  We  need  a  revelation  as  to 
ourselves,  as  well;  we  ask  instinctively:  "  How 
do  I  stand  In  God's  opinion?  What  does  he 
want  of  me?  How  may  I  please  him?  "  Such 
questions  seem  to  have  been  asked  by,  it  is 
hardly  too  much  to  say,  all  men  In  all  countries 
and  in  all  ages,  even  by  the  lowest  savages  who 
confuse  gods  and  ghosts  but  are  found  always, 
I  believe,  to  recognize  the  existence  of  Imma- 
terial powers  whose  favor  they  regard  it  as 
Imperatively  necessary  for  them  to  endeavor 
to  secure.  Now  the  Bible  has  certainly  been 
found  to  answer  this  demand.  The  reader 
feels,  all  through  Its  pages,  that  the  two  great 
divisions  of  duty,  reverence  toward  God  and 
beneficence  to  man,  are  constantly  recognized, 
even  when  not  formally  stated  in  combination, 
as  they  repeatedly  are.  Very  suggestive,  and 
made  lucidly  explicit  in  Christ's  summary.  Is 
the  arrangement  of  the  Commandments,  the 
first    four   outlining  broadly   our   relations   to 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  67 

God,  the  last  six  covering  pretty  completely  our 
duties  toward  each  other,  In  thought  as  well  as 
In  deed.  Please  notice  the  high  spirituality  of 
the  Tenth.  All  overt  acts  In  contravention  of 
what  It  demands  are  pretty  completely  covered 
by  the  prohibitions  of  the  Seventh  and  the 
Eighth,  and  It  seems  to  be  almost  certain  that 
an  uninspired  law-giver  of  the  time  of  Moses, 
especially  if  laying  down  rules  for  a  half-savage 
multitude  of  brick-making  slaves  just  liberated, 
would  have  stopped  right  there,  stopped  where 
all  human  laws  necessarily  stop,  Instead  of 
going  on  to  ordain  that  you  must  not  only  re- 
spect other  people's  property  and  let  their 
wives  alone,  but  you  must  not  even  cherish  a 
wish  that  you  possessed  them.  Unless  the 
Hebrews  had  absorbed  much  more  of  the  re- 
ligious philosophy  of  the  Egyptians  than  is  any- 
where suggested  by  the  story,  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  promulgation  of  this  so  sweeping  law 
must  have  amazed  them  greatly. 

But  further,  more  generally  and  yet  more 
specifically,  we  have  such  summaries  as  these : 
*'  In  every  nation  he  that  (i)  feareth  Him  and 


68  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

(2)  worketh  righteousness  is  accepted  with 
Him";  "This  is  His  commandment,  that  we 
(i)  believe  on  the  name  of  His  Son  and  (2) 
love  one  another."  Sometimes  the  order  is  re- 
versed, duty  to  man  coming  first,  as  in  the  noted 
epitome  of  pure  religion  by  St.  James  —  "  To 
(i)  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in  their 
affliction  and  (2)  keep  himself  unspotted  from 
the  world  " ;  or  as  in  the  anonymous  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  —  "  Follow  peace  with  all  men 
(i),  and  holiness  (2)  without  which  no  man 
shall  see  the  Lord  " ;  or  as  In  Micah's  pregnant 
question,  "  What  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee 
but  (i)  to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  (2)  to 
walk  humbly  with  thy  God?  "  One  feels  also 
that  the  principle  of  the  Golden  Rule,  the  doc- 
trine that  mere  justice  to  our  fellow-men  is  by 
no  means  all  that  is  required  by  the  highest 
ethics,  is  recognized  all  through  the  Scriptures, 
even  so  far  back  as  the  writing  of  what  many 
students  believe  to  be  the  oldest  book  of  all, 
for  Job  protested  that  he  had  not  "  rejoiced  at 
the  destruction  of  him  that  hated  me  or  lifted 
up  myself  when  evil  found  him  or  suffered  my 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  69 

mouth  to  sin  by  wishing  a  curse  to  his  soul." 
Admonitions  against  that  kind  of  transgression, 
exactly  the  kind  that  the  Golden  Rule  repre- 
hends, abound.  A  section  of  the  formal  law, 
as  given  In  Leviticus,  reads :  '*  Thou  shalt  not 
bear  any  grudge  against  the  children  of  thy  peo- 
ple, but  thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 
The  Proverbs  say:  "  Rejoice  not  when  thine 
enemy  falleth,  and  let  not  thine  heart  be  glad 
when  he  stumbleth  " ;  ''  Say  not,  I  will  do  so 
to  him  as  he  hath  done  to  me,  I  will  render  to 
the  man  according  to  his  work";  "If  thine 
enemy  be  hungry,  give  him  bread  to  eat,  and  If 
he  be  thirsty,  give  him  water  to  drink,  for  thou 
shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  upon  his  head,  and  the 
Lord  shall  reward  thee."  Please  notice  that 
these  are  all  Old  Testament  doctrines,  and 
notice  that  they  fully  cover  the  state  of  the 
heart,  as  well  as  the  behavior;  one  must  not 
even  ^'  hear  any  grudge  J*  They  merely  antici- 
pate the  rule  giv^en  by  Christ,  and  In  fact  he 
quoted  the  affirmative  part  of  the  Levltlcal  pre- 
cept word  for  word. 

Nor  Is  that  quite  all.     It  is  said  that  we  do 


70  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

not  discern  the  doctrine  of  man^s  immortality 
in  the  Old  Testament,  and  assuredly  it  is  not 
prominent  there.  Nevertheless  the  careful 
reader  will  find  in  even  the  oldest  books  much 
matter  that  is  hardly  intelligible  unless  it  be 
supposed  that  that  doctrine  is  taken  for  granted. 
The  story  of  the  Witch  of  Endor,  for  instance, 
a  story  that  shows  the  dark  superstition  that 
obscured  the  religious  beliefs  of  the  Jews  all 
through  the  dismal  era  of  the  Judges,  presup- 
poses life  after  death,  and  more  than  pre- 
supposes it,  if  we  give  their  full  natural  meaning 
to  the  words  of  the  disembodied  spirit  of 
Samuel  addressing  Saul:  "To-morrow  shalt 
thou  and  thy  sons  be  with  me."  Similarly,  and 
with  more  emphasis,  in  Ecclesiastes,  the  writer 
asserting  rather  distinctly,  it  seems  to  me,  the 
possibility  of  immortality  for  man  exclusively 
among  all  earthly  creatures:  "Who  knoweth 
the  spirit  of  man  that  goeth  upward,  and  the 
spirit  of  the  beast  that  goeth  downward  to  the 
earth?"  And  still  more  clearly  in  Daniel's 
prediction  of  the  resurrection  and  the  conditions 
of  attaining  exactly  the  blessed  state  beyond  the 


A  BOOK  SUCCESS  71 

grave  that  Christ  promised  in  words  no  more 
explicit :  "  Many  of  them  that  sleep  In  the  dust 
of  the  earth  shall  awake,  some  to  everlasting 
life,  and  some  to  shame  and  everlasting  con- 
tempt. And  they  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as 
the  brightness  of  the  firmament,  and  they  that 
turn  many  to  righteousness,  as  the  stars  for  ever 
and  ever.'*  With  all  the  clearer  light  of  the 
New  Testament,  there  Is  little  of  doctrinal 
value  to  add  to  that  declaration.  Well  said 
Huxley  —  yes,  the  agnostic  Huxley  —  that 
there  is  no  other  book  which  so  "  humanizes  " 
its  readers,  so  makes  them  "  feel  that  each  fig- 
ure In  that  vast  historical  procession  fills,  like 
themselves,  but  a  momentary  space  in  the  In- 
terval between  two  eternities,  and  earns  the 
blessings  or  the  curses  of  all  time,  according  to 
its  effort  to  do  good  and  hate  evil." 

Here  then,  it  seems  to  me,  we  have  the  facts : 
Whatever  may  be  said  about  unprofitable  or 
unintelligible  portions  of  the  Bible,  the  con- 
sensus of  the  Impressions  of  those  who  have 
read  it  is  that  it  embodies  such  a  revelation  of 
the  Creator  as  fully  satisfies  man's  best  concep- 


72  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

tlons,  and  such  a  revelation  as  there  is  no  possi- 
ble reason  for  believing  that  man  could  ever 
Invent;  that  It  lays  down  broad  rules  of  conduct 
for  man,  both  In  his  relations  to  his  Maker  and 
to  his  fellow-creatures,  which  completely  satisfy 
the  demands  of  an  enlightened  conscience,  and 
beyond  which  no  rules  could  go,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  nature  of  these  rules  Is  such  as  to 
render  almost  absurdly  incredible  the  suggestion 
that  unaided  man  may  have  devised  them,  espe- 
cially the  kind  of  men  who  wrote  out  the  law  of 
the  Jews,  and  In  the  times  In  which  they  wrote; 
and  that  it  also  promises,  even  in  books  written 
long  before  the  advent  of  Christ,  exactly  the 
Immortality,  and  prescribes  exactly  the  condi- 
tions of  attaining  It,  that  we  feel  ought  to  be. 
If  the  Maker  of  man  revealed  himself  and  his 
will  and  the  existence  of  a  real  life  beyond  the 
grave,  to  the  authors  of  the  Bible  as  he  does 
not  to  the  world  at  large,  and  if  they  did  their 
best,  In  ignorance  and  prejudice,  to  set  down 
the  revelation  in  writing,  the  problem  Is  solved. 
No  wonder  their  book  holds  unrivaled  sway  In 
the  markets  of  the  world. 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE 

BY  "  nature,"  for  present  purposes,  is  under- 
stood the  material  universe,  including  all 
phenomena  with  which  the  non-metaphysical 
sciences  deal  —  the  whole  body,  one  might  per- 
haps say,  of  concrete  truth,  about  which,  so  far 
as  satisfactory  investigation  has  been  pushed, 
we  feel  positively  sure;  the  actual  facts,  exclud- 
ing all  hypotheses  which  are  from  their  nature 
incapable  of  demonstration.  By  "  orthodoxy  " 
(neglecting  the  etymology  of  the  word),  is 
meant  a  certain  system  of  belief  on  subjects  in 
regard  to  which  neither  the  senses  nor  pure  rea- 
son can  furnish  any  direct  testimony  —  the 
common  opinion  of  the  so-called  "  evan- 
gelical "  churches.  This  system  of  belief  in- 
dubitably includes,  among  others,  the  follow- 
ing points : 

I.  That  all  men,   everywhere.   Incline  natu- 
rally to  evil  rather  than  to  good;  and  that  no 

73 


74  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

one  makes  persistent  progress  toward  a  strictly 
virtuous  life  without  supernatural  assistance. 

2.  That  man,  nevertheless,  Is  entirely  free  in 
his  choices  as  a  moral  agent,  and  Is  therefore 
responsible  for  all  his  deeds ;  and  yet  that  God 
not  only  foreknows  to  the  minutest  particular 
whatever  comes  to  pass,  but  also  so  directs  the 
course  of  events  as  to  work  out  fully  his  own 
will,  both  in  the  general  history  of  nations  and 
in  the  personal  life  of  every  human  being. 

3.  That  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are  visited 
upon  the  children,  to  the  third  and  fourth  gen- 
eration. 

4.  That  man's  eternal  well-being  depends 
largely  upon  his  complying  with  certain  con- 
ditions which  are  stated  In  a  number  of  ancient 
manuscripts,  written  in  languages  that  no  man 
for  centuries  has  ordinarily  spoken,  and  for  the 
most  part  not  explicitly  formulated  even  In  these 
writings,  but  expressed  In  general  terms,  or  left 
to  be  Inferred  by  the  reader,  in  such  manner 
that  there  is  wide  room  for  differences  of  opin- 
ion on  many  not  unimportant  points. 

5.  That  some  men  who  appear  to  lead  sober. 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      75 

honest,  industrious,  kindly  and  useful  lives,  are 
nevertheless  the  continual  objects  of  the  wrath 
of  God,  and  pass  at  death  to  an  unenviable 
condition  — 

6.  From  which  it  is  at  least  doubtful  whether 
there  shall  ever  be  deliverance. 

That  these  tenets  are  regarded  with  dislike 
by  a  very  large  number  of  the  people  to  whom 
they  have  been  propounded  —  excluding  such 
persons  as  have  never  distinctly  apprehended 
their  purport  in  its  depth  and  fullness,  and  ex- 
cluding also  such,  at  the  other  extreme  of  the 
scale,  as  have  either  been  able  to  reason  out  for 
themselves,  or  have  received  understandingly 
from  others,  a  satisfactory  system  of  theodicy 

—  goes  without  saying.  Some  accept  them,  or 
suppose  they  accept  them,  in  an  unthinking,  im- 
plicit way,  as  matters  too  sacred  for  prying 
curiosity  or  impartial  discussion,  while  secretly 

—  half  unconsciously,  perhaps  —  wishing  that 
most  of  them  were  not  true.  Some  hold  their 
judgment  in  suspense,  seeking  salvation  for 
themselves  indeed  in  the  manner  prescribed  by 
the  orthodox  faith,  and  laboring,  very  likely,  to 


76  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

persuade  others  to  follow  their  example,  but 
really  entertaining  all  the  time  a  certain  degree 
of  suspicion  that  perhaps  they  are  taking  un- 
necessary trouble,  and  a  certain  degree  of  hope, 
consequently,  that  their  friends  who  neglect 
entirely  the  alleged  essentials  of  salvation  may 
fare  just  as  well  in  the  next  world  notwithstand- 
ing. Some  reject  them  utterly  and  con- 
temptuously as  inconsistent  with  each  other, 
incompatible  with  the  conceptions  they  have 
formed  as  to  what  ought  to  be  the  character 
of  God,  or  as  on  other  grounds  unworthy  the 
belief  of  independent  and  fearless  thinkers.  It 
is  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  point  out  that 
certain  striking  parallelisms  to  these,  the  most 
"  unpopular  "  dogmas  of  the  Christian  faith, 
may  readily  be  discerned  In  nature,  the  physical 
universe  that  surrounds  us  and  of  which  we 
form  a  part. 

I 

The  doctrine  of  total  depravity,  how  it  has 
been,  and  now  Is,  scorned  and  execrated  by 
turns!     Yet  divorce  the  Idea  from  theological 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      77 

phraseology,  consider  It  as  a  practical  every- 
day subject  ought  to  be  considered  by  a  rational 
and  prudent  man  who  has  other  men  to  deal 
with,  and  how  do  the  facts  look?  Do  the  per- 
sons that  one  knows  the  most  about,  generally 
exhibit  a  marked  tendency  toward  discovering 
for  themselves,  and  then  abandoning,  their 
faults  and  bad  practices?  Are  our  social  and 
business  regulations  adjusted  on  the  presump- 
tion that  men  may  commonly  be  trusted  and 
that  evil  purposes  are  rather  the  exception? 
Does  one  ordinarily  receive  strangers  Into  the 
Intimacy  of  'his  family  on  the  strength  of  per- 
sonal attractiveness  and  courteous  mien,  with- 
out responsible  Introduction,  the  Implied  or 
expressed  guarantee  of  some  trusted  friend? 
Does  the  proprietor  of  a  great  mercantile  es- 
tablishment allow  his  subordinates  to  keep  their 
accounts  as  they  please  or  not  at  all,  taking  for 
granted  that  he  will  receive  from  each  of  them 
the  correct  amounts  of  money?  Are  Important 
agreements  —  no  matter  how  simple  —  usually 
settled  by  word  of  mouth,  without  the  execution 
of  formal  papers  that  will  bind  the  signer  In  a 


78  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

court  of  law?  Is  It  thought  useless  to  take  a 
written  receipt  for  a  payment  because  the  per- 
son to  whom  It  Is  made  Is  not  likely  to  forget 
the  transaction?  Are  loans  effected  at  the 
Stock  Exchange  without  furnishing  tangible  se- 
curity? Are  good  habits  as  easy  of  acquisition, 
and  do  they  hold  one's  life  as  firmly  in  their 
grasp  when  established,  as  bad  habits? 

Such  questions  answer  themselves;  any  child 
old  enough  to  understand  them  will  give  the 
correct  reply.  Put  this  case  to  any  group  of 
young  people:  "  Suppose  there  are  two  boys  of 
the  same  age,  living  next  door  to  each  other,  in 
houses  just  alike;  their  fathers  are  employed  at 
the  same  rate  of  pay  In  the  same  factory,  and 
in  every  respect  the  two  homes  are  very  similar. 
Suppose,  however,  that  one  of  these  boys  has 
been  brought  up  to  speak  the  truth  at  all  haz- 
ards, to  abhor  dishonesty  and  impurity,  to  con- 
trol his  temper,  to  thank  God  every  morning 
for  protection  through  the  night,  and  to  seek 
divine  pardon  every  evening  for  the  sins  of  the 
day  —  while  the  other  boy  lies  and  steals  and 
fights  and  swears.     Suppose  now,  that  the  two 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      79 

become  Intiinate  friends,  and  are  constantly  to- 
gether. What  do  you  think  will  happen? 
Will  each  learn  of  the  other  —  the  one,  good 
things;  the  other,  evil  things?  Or  will  one  of 
them  gradually  copy  the  other  In  all  things?" 
I  have  tried  the  experiment  several  times,  and 
have  never  yet  failed  of  receiving  the  same 
reply:  "The  bad  boy  will  spoil  the  good 
boy!  "  And  the  experience  of  mature  life,  it 
can  hardly  be  doubted,  will  confirm  the  opinion 
thus  formed  under  the  guidance  of  the  clear  in- 
stinct of  childhood.  Practically,  all  sane  men 
concur  in  it. 

I  was  traveling,  one  pleasant  autumn  after- 
noon, through  the  great  fruit  region  of  Western 
New  York.  Two  men  sitting  near  me,  whose 
words  I  could  not  choose  but  hear,  had  been 
discussing  religious  (or  irreligious)  questions  in 
a  manner  which  left  no  doubt,  though  that  par- 
ticular point  had  not  come  up,  that  they  would 
both  have  pooh-poohed  total  depravity  as  the 
nonsensical  fancy  of  an  antiquated  age.  But  as 
the  widespread  apple  orchards,  heavy  laden, 
met  our  eyes  in  every  direction,  the  conversation 


8o  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

turned  upon  fruit,  its  production  and  marketing, 
and  it  transpired  that  one  of  these  men  was  a 
buyer  of  apples  in  large  quantities.  The  risks 
and  losses  of  the  business  were  spoken  of,  and 
especially  the  frauds  attempted  by  dishonest 
shippers.  The  fruit-buyer  remarked,  however, 
that  he  knew  just  one  man,  only  one,  whose 
apples  he  received  without  examination;  they 
were  always  exactly  what  they  were  represented 
to  be,  or  if  there  was  any  difference,  they 
turned  out  rather  better  than  the  grower 
described  them.  "  Well,"  answered  his  com- 
panion, "  my  private  opinion  is  that  some  fine 
day  when  you  take  an  unusually  large  lot  from 
that  fellow  at  a  high  price,  you  will  find  yourself 
egregiously  swindled;  and  then  he  will  play  off 
his  good  character  on  you,  and  have  some 
plausible  story  about  its  not  being  really  his 
fault,  and  you'll  never  get  satisfaction."  The 
first  man  laughed,  and  said,  yes,  he  supposed 
so;  it  was  the  way  of  the  world. 

I  thought  then,  and  think  now,  that  this  an- 
ticipation of  villainy  was  not  justified  by  the 
facts  as  stated.     I  believed  then,  and  believe 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      8i 

now,   that  In  every  half-christianized  country 
there  are  thousands  of  men  in  every  walk  of  life 
whose  word  is  as  good  as  their  bond,  and  who 
hold  their  personal  Integrity  above  all  questions 
of  loss  or  gain  of  money.     But  the  point  of 
interest    In    the    conversation    is    that    these 
speakers  —  hard,  practical  men  of  business,  ac- 
customed to  driving  bargains  with  all  sorts  of 
buyers  and  sellers,  and  to  forming  quick  and 
shrewd  judgments  of  the  character  and  inten- 
tions   of    those    with    whom    their    vocations 
brought   them   Into   contact  —  that   these   men 
had  derived  from  their  experience  so  low  an 
opinion  of  the  actual  morality  of  their  fellows; 
that  they  had  plainly  reached  the   conclusion 
that  there  are  few  indeed  who  are  really  honest 
except  so  far  as  they  think  It  their  best  policy 
to    be   so.     See   what  the    fruit-buyer's   words 
really  come  to:     In  all  his  dealings  with  the 
growers,   he   had  never   encountered  but   one 
trustworthy  man,  and  he  would  not  be  surprised 
to  have  even  him  turn  out  a  knave  on  the  first 
especially  favorable  opportunity;  It  was  ''the 
way  of  the  world!  " 


82  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

Now  the  point  I  wish  to  make  is  just  this: 
We  ordinarily  treat  our  fellow  men  as  if  there 
were  a  strong  presumption  that  they  would  take 
unfair  advantage  of  us  if  they  could;  we  know 
by  experience  (if  the  trial  has  been  made)  how 
much  easier  it  is  to  acquire  new  faults  than  to 
relinquish  those  we  have,  while  observation 
clearly  teaches  that  evil  communications  are  far 
more  apt  to  corrupt  good  manners  than  are 
good  manners  to  over-awe  evil  communications; 
and  we  shall  be  told  every  day,  on  inquiry  of 
the  men  most  experienced  in  the  rough  struggle 
for  life,  that  "  it  is  the  way  of  the  world  "  to 
assume  a  cloak  of  virtue  to  hide  the  intention 
of  vice  —  confirming  Herbert  Spencer's  gen- 
eralization that  in  the  management  of  business, 
"  instead  of  assuming,  as  people  usually  do, 
that  things  are  going  right  until  it  is  proved 
that  they  are  going  wrong,  the  proper  course 
is  to  assume  that  they  are  going  wrong  until  it 
is  proved  that  they  are  going  right." 

These  facts,  established  and  indisputable,  do 
not  entirely  cover  the  ground  of  the  theological 
doctrine  of  total  depravity;  but  do  they  not  fur- 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      83 

nish  us,  In  phenomena  of  which  every  student  of 
the  human  race  is  bound  to  take  account,  a  close 
parallel  to  that  doctrine,  which  is  often  over- 
looked by  mystical  believers  in  the  "  something 
good  "  in  every  depraved  and  abandoned  man? 

II 

The  world  wearied  long  ago,  as  well  it  might, 
of  the  endless  disputes  in  which  many  thinkers 
capable  of  better  work  have  engaged  about  free 
will  and  foreordination.  There  is  perhaps  no 
more  unprofitable  task  than  to  endeavor  to 
reconcile  in  words  these  two  conceptions  as 
harmonious  with  each  other.  But  let  us  keep 
clear  of  the  metaphysics  of  the  case  and  look 
at  nature. 

That  man  is  free  in  his  choices,  surely  few 
persons  outside  of  jail  and  bedlam  will  deny; 
whoever  affirms  that  he  Is  unable  to  decide  as 
he  pleases  on  every  question  of  right  or  wrong 
doing,  may  well  be  suspected.  If  he  speaks 
seriously,  either  of  fraud  or  Insanity.  One  may 
of  course  persuade  himself  that  he  Is  too  weak 
to  carry  out  his  purposes,  and  so  may  go  wrong 


84  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

while  he  says  he  means  to  go  right;  but  that  is 
quite  another  matter.  It  is  the  decision,  the 
choosing,  with  which  only  we  are  here  con- 
cerned; and  the  drunkard  of  most  frequent 
drunkenness,  or  the  profane  person  of  the  most 
multifarious  oaths,  while  pleading  earnestly  the 
tyranny  of  long  established  habit  as  an  excuse 
for  his  bad  practices,  will  invariably  use  lan- 
guage that  presupposes  and  admits  his  unim- 
paired ability  to  resolve  upon  a  reformation. 
**  I  honestly  meant  to  go  right  home  that  night, 
but  I  had  to  pass  so  many  drinking  places,  and 
you  don't  know  what  struggles  I  went  through 
before  I  yielded  to  the  temptation  " —  what 
employer,  about  to  discharge  a  dissipated  man, 
has  not  heard  language  like  that,  in  palliation 
of  the  last  disgraceful  debauch?  And  what 
employer,  or  what  court  of  justice,  though  pity- 
ing and  at  the  same  time  despising  the  weakness 
of  the  culprit  who  only  means  and  wishes  to  do 
right,  while  persistently  in  fact  doing  wrong, 
will  acquit  him  of  responsibility  for  the  results 
of  his  vicious  courses  on  the  ground  that  he 
could  not  abandon  them?    The  whole  structure 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      85 

of  every  description  of  government  and  disci- 
pline, from  the  family  up  to  the  nation,  has  for 
its  fundamental  principle  and  corner-stone  the 
universally  accepted  belief  that  man  is  morally 
free. 

Yet  what  feature  is  more  obvious  in  our  daily 
experience  than  this  —  that  the  most  carefully 
considered  course  of  action  Is  apt  to  bring  about 
results  entirely  different  from  those  desired,  and 
that  not  only  one's  visible  career  but  even  the 
inner  personal  life  very  often  shapes  Itself,  so 
to  speak,  into  forms  quite  other  than  those  that 
were  intended?  "  So  strangely,"  writes  Ma- 
caulay,  "  do  events  confound  all  the  plans 
of  man!  A  prince  who  read  only  French,  who 
wrote  only  French,  who  ranked  as  a  French 
classic,  became,  quite  unconsciously,  the  means 
of  liberating  half  the  Continent  from  the  do- 
minion of  that  French  criticism  of  which  he  was 
himself  to  the  end  of  his  life  a  slave."  The 
same  conception  has  crystallized  Itself  Into  a 
dozen  popular  proverbs:  ''man  proposes  —  "; 
"  the  best  laid  plans  —  " ;  "  there's  many  a 
slip  " —  how  familiar,  how  threadbare,  is  the 


86  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

idea !  And  how  few  men  there  are  who  ever 
either  do  or  become  what  they  intended !  How 
httle  is  mental  development,  how  little  are  our 
tastes  and  habits,  governed  In  the  long  run  by 
deliberate  purpose;  or  rather,  how  often  do 
they  grow  In  directions  diametrically  opposed 
to  the  fixed  intention !  No  man  surely  who 
knows  anything  of  himself  or  of  mankind,  will 
compare  a  human  soul  to  the  steamer  that 
plows  her  way  through  the  billows  regardless 
of  wind  and  current,  or  even  to  the  ship  that 
may  be  tossed  about  this  way  and  that,  but 
finally  reaches  the  port  of  destination.  Rather 
does  it  resemble  the  climbing  vine,  embodying 
indeed  a  principle  of  growth  and  of  a  certain 
kind  of  growth,  but  depending  chiefly  for  its 
form  and  its  direction  upon  circumstances  lying 
entirely  outside  of  Its  own  nature.  Now  the 
orthodox  doctrine  asks  only  a  slight  extension 
of  these  well-known  truths.  Substitute,  for 
Macaulay's  vague  term  "  events,"  the  perfectly 
clear  and  intelligible  conception  of  a  higher 
power  Influencing  events,  and  one  sees  instantly 
that  the  free  will  of  the  creature  may  have  Its 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      87 

fullest  exercise,  while  yet  the  purposes  of  the 
Creator  are  brought  to  pass. 

And  in  regard  to  the  operation  of  the  higher 
power  and  its  bearings  upon  the  responsibility 
of  the  beings  whom,  free  though  they  be, 
that  higher  power  directs  and  restrains,  do  we 
not  see  every  day  how  a  stronger  will  may  con- 
trol a  weaker,  without  trenching  in  the  smallest 
degree  on  its  freedom  of  action?  The  father 
of  a  bright,  active  boy,  devoted  to  the  sports  of 
the  field,  may  have  a  practically  certain  pre- 
vision that  an  invitation  to  go  gunning  will  be 
joyfully  accepted;  and  his  giving  the  invitation 
is  just  as  truly  the  cause  of  the  boy's  willing  to 
avail  himself  of  it,  as  any  one  event  can  be  the 
cause  of  another.  The  boy's  volition  to  go  is 
absolutely  free,  and  yet  is  the  inevitable  result 
of  the  father's  action.  Now  suppose  a  father 
omniscient  and  omnipotent,  understanding  to 
perfection  the  disposition  of  his  child,  and  pos- 
sessed of  every  conceivable  facility  for  present- 
ing every  kind  of  motive  —  what  difficulty  is 
there  in  understanding  that  he  may  exercise  an 
unlimited  control  over  the  child's  actions,  while 


88  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

yet  the  child  is  free  and  must  therefore  justly 
be  held  responsible,  both  by  his  own  conscience 
and  by  every  tribunal  in  the  universe,  for  what- 
ever he  does? 

It  may  be  thought,  however,  that  there  must 
be  a  fallacy  somewhere  in  this  reasoning;  that 
though  we  think  we  see  one  will  perfectly  con- 
trolled by  another,  while  yet  acting  with  per- 
fect freedom,  the  two  processes  are  mutually 
inconsistent  and  cannot  go  on  together.  But  it 
needs  no  more  than  an  extremely  superficial 
acquaintance  with  the  elements  of  physical 
science  to  exhibit  the  folly  of  rejecting  either 
one  of  two  well  attested  propositions  because 
we  cannot  make  them  agree  with  each  other. 
As  Ruskin  wisely  said:  ''Very  few  truths  in 
any  science  can  be  fairly  stated  without  such  an 
expression  of  their  opposite  sides  as  looks,  to  a 
person  who  has  not  grasp  of  the  subject 
enough  to  take  in  both  sides  at  once,  like  a  con- 
tradiction." No  satisfactory  explanation  of 
the  phenomena  of  light  can  be  made,  without 
supposing  the  existence  of  a  medium  which  pre- 
sents the  most  contradictory  and  seemingly  im- 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      89 

possible  properties.  The  cosmic  ether  is 
infinitely  more  attenuated  than  any  gas,  but  yet 
in  many  respects  bears  a  much  closer  resem- 
blance to  solid  bodies !  It  is  matter,  of  course, 
and  all  matter  is  supposed  to  be  made  up  of 
unchangeable  and  distinct  particles;  yet,  for 
many  reasons,  the  ether  cannot  be  thus  consti- 
tuted. And  indeed  the  whole  atomic  theory  — 
universally  accepted  as  it  is,  necessary  as  it 
seems  to  be  for  the  scientific  statement  of  scores 
of  classes  of  phenomena,  and  almost  demon- 
strated to  be  true,  as  it  is,  by  the  results  of 
countless  experiments  in  chemistry,  is  yet,  con- 
sidered as  a  whole,  a  bundle  of  contradictions. 
From  one  point  of  view,  it  seems  to  be  certain 
that  the  atoms  of  all  substances  are  exactly 
alike;  from  another,  equally  certain  that  they 
are  intrinsically  very  different  in  size,  weight 
and  character.  There  are  strong  reasons,  al- 
most conclusive  proof,  for  believing  the  atoms 
to  be  perfectly  hard,  mechanically  unchange- 
able; and  equally  strong  reasons  for  supposing 
them  not  only  highly  elastic  but  undergoing 
frequent    and    most    radical    transformation. 


90  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

Yet  some  of  the  very  investigators  who  are 
most  busily  engaged  In  developing  this  atomic 
theory,  would  have  It  believed  that  only  the 
"  scientific  "  view  of  any  subject  Is  worthy  of 
attention,  and  that  "  science  "  (by  which  they 
mean  physical  science)  Is  always  intelligible  and 
self-consistent!  Nor  will  It  do  to  answer  that 
the  undulatory  theory  of  light,  and  the  atomic 
constitution  of  matter,  are  only  working  hy- 
potheses. The  simple  truth  is  that  all  the 
facts  point  directly  toward  light-waves  and  the 
existence  of  atoms,  as  the  only  generalizations 
that  can  satisfactorily  explain  them,  and  that 
the  waves  and  atoms  are  therefore  believed  In, 
notwithstanding  the  contradictions  in  which  the 
thinker  immediately  finds  himself  involved  be- 
yond hope  of  extrication.  How  absurd  then, 
how  trivial  a  complaint  it  Is  against  the  theo- 
logical doctrines  of  natural  inclination  to  evil 
conjoined  with  moral  responsibility,  and  man's 
free  will  conjoined  with  God's  sovereignty,  that 
we  do  not  know  how  to  state  them  without 
seeming  contradictions  I  In  natural  science, 
dealing  with  brute  matter  that  can  be  seen  and 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      91 

handled  and  weighed  and  analyzed,  we  accept 
any  fact  for  which  satisfactory  evidence  is  pre- 
sented, without  caring  in  the  least  for  our 
inability  to  make  it  agree  with  other  facts 
equally  well  attested.  Shall  we  then  in  spiritual 
science,  where  the  phenomena  to  be  considered 
are  infinitely  more  complicated,  their  laws 
infinitely  more  involved,  and  where  our  powers 
of  comprehension  and  reasoning  are  hardly 
adequate  to  even  skimming  the  surface  of  the 
great  ocean  of  unknown  and  perhaps  to  us  un- 
knowable truth  —  shall  we  in  spiritual  science 
demand  that  every  statement  must  be  seen  fully 
and  exactly  to  square  with  every  other  before 
It  can  be  rationally  believed?  If  the  student 
of  natural  philosophy,  or  the  chemist,  demands 
that  this  be  done,  he  at  the  same  time  condemns 
his  own  methods  of  procedure  as  fundamentally 
erroneous,  and  their  results  as  the  delusive  fig- 
ments of  his  misguided  imagination. 

Ill 

In  the  anxiety  which  many  foolish  people  dis- 
play to  find  cruelty,  oppression  and  injustice  in 


92  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

the  primary  tenets  of  the  orthodox  faith,  a 
forced  and  unnatural  Interpretation  of  the  doc- 
trine that  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are  visited  upon 
the  children,  is  often  Insisted  on.  To  the  un- 
prejudiced reader,  the  words  of  the  Second 
Commandment,  whatever  may  be  thought  of 
other  passages  of  Scripture  (among  which,  the 
1 8th  chapter  of  Ezeklel  should  never  be  over- 
looked) ,  convey  no  hint  of  the  imputation  of 
sin  or  of  the  descent  by  Inheritance  of  divine 
displeasure ;  but  merely  embody  a  truth  that  Is 
simply  indisputable.  Our  scientific  friends  at 
all  events,  who  regard  every  phenomenon  of 
whatever  kind  as  the  necessary  result  of  a  con- 
geries of  indestructible  forces  acting  strictly  in 
accordance  with  unvarying  laws,  ought  to  be  the 
last  people  in  the  world  to  object  to  the  manifest 
deduction  that  a  child  must  suffer  for  his  par- 
ents' sins.  Indeed  the  fact  Is  too  obvious  for 
argument.  So  far  as  a  just  God's  judgment 
upon  each  man's  moral  character  is  concerned, 
that  judgment  must  be  conceived  as  made  up 
of  an  Inconceivable  number  of  elements,  the 
soul  having  credit,  so  to  speak,  for  every  dis- 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      93 

advantage,  however  trifling,  under  which  it  may 
have  labored,  and  being  charged,  on  the  other 
hand,  with  every  act  of  willful  transgression 
and  with  every  neglect  of  opportunity  of  im- 
provement. In  this  balancing  of  accounts,  the 
transgressions  of  the  father  must  certainly  be 
placed  to  the  credit  of  the  children  just  so  far 
as  they  have  operated  to  incline  the  latter  in- 
voluntarily toward  sin;  it  were  the  grossest 
injustice  to  expect  from  the  child  of  a  depraved 
wretch  the  same  clean  record  that  is  looked  for 
from  the  members  of  a  Christian  family.  But 
so  far  as  the  course  of  our  earthly  life  is  con- 
cerned—  that  also  being  the  resultant  of  an 
immense  number  of  conflicting  forces  —  it  is 
manifest  that  every  transgression  of  any  sort  of 
law  must  put  the  children  of  the  transgressor 
at  a  certain  disadvantage  for  all  futurity;  physi- 
cally, mentally,  morally,  they  can  never  be  quite 
what  they  might  have  been  had  they  sprung 
from  a  line  of  sinless  progenitors.  To  put  the 
thing  into  concrete  form,  every  syphilitic  baby 
is  a  monument  of  transgression  of  physical 
law     committed    before     Its    birth.     Nobody 


94  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

imagines  that  God  blames  the  poor  child  for  its 
ailments;  but  the  regular  operation  of  divine 
law  will  nevertheless  inevitably  bring  upon  it  a 
train  of  untold  miseries,  as  the  fruit  of  its  an- 
cestors' folly  or  sin.  The  fact  is  stated  to  man- 
kind as  a  motive  to  abstain  from  transgression; 
what  stronger  motive,  to  a  parent  worthy  of 
the  name,  could  the  Infinite  Father  offer? 

"  But  the  cruelty  involved?  the  innocent  suf- 
ferers? You  orthodox  people  will  not  let  us 
look  at  the  operations  of  nature  as  natural. 
You  insist  upon  it  that  a  personal  God  acts  di- 
rectly through  them  all,  and  acts  freely,  however 
regularly.  How  then,  if  he  is  really  a  loving 
father,  can  he  bear  to  bring  misery  upon  inno- 
cent children  in  consequence  of  transgressions 
for  which  they  are  in  no  manner  responsible?  " 

Well,  the  goodness  of  God  is  established  by 
another  chain  of  arguments.  Remember,  please, 
that  many  highly  unorthodox  thinkers  profess  to 
find  nothing  but  beneficence  in  nature,  and  feel 
perfectly  easy  in  the  conclusion  that  the  author 
of  nature  is  too  soft-hearted  even  to  punish  sin. 
"  The  infinite  goodness  that  I  have  experienced 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      95 

in  this  world,"  writes  Renan,  "  inspires  me  with 
a  conviction  that  at  least  an  equal  goodness  per- 
vades eternity;  and  in  that  I  put  my  trust." 
But  as  to  the  possibility  of  God's  permitting 
grave  evils  to  light  upon  the  innocent  and  well- 
deserving,  what  do  we  see  every  day  around  us? 
Surely  no  one  can  suppose  that  inherited  suffer- 
ing is  the  only  example  of  suffering  without  spe- 
cial corresponding  blameworthiness.  "  The 
deists  have  contended,"  said  a  well-known  and 
eloquent  infidel  lecturer,  "  that  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  too  cruel  .  .  .  to  be  the  work  of 
a  .  .  .  loving  God.  To  this,  the  theo- 
logians have  replied,  that  nature  is  just  as  cruel; 
that  the  earthquake,  the  volcano,  the  pestilence 
and  storm,  are  just  as  savage  .  .  .  ;  and  to 
my  mind,"  he  goes  on  —  a  remarkable  admis- 
sion —  *'  this  is  a  perfect  answer  J'  Thus  is 
orthodoxy  supported  on  diametrically  opposite 
sides  by  the  observations  of  "  freethinkers," 
one  party  stoutly  maintaining  that  the  Creator 
certainly  loves  mankind,  while  the  others  insist 
that  the  course  of  natural  events  is  just  as  cruel 
and  "  savage  "  as  any  doctrine  of  revelation. 


96  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

Each  of  these  opinions  is  doubtless  true;  but 
exaggerate  either  of  them  far  enough  to  come 
into  conflict  with  the  tenets  of  orthodoxy,  and 
it  forthwith  annihilates  the  other !  —  which  is 
just  what  we  should  expect,  if  nature  and 
orthodoxy  are  from  the  same  hand. 

IV 

The  ancient  Jews  have  no  lack  of  modern 
sympathizers  in  demanding  a  sign  from  heaven 
before  they  will  believe.  A  true  revelation 
from  God,  it  is  said,  would  speak  in  trumpet 
tones  to  every  human  being;  there  could  be  no 
doubt  of  its  divine  origin,  and  no  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  message.  Can 
it  be  possible,  it  is  asked,  that  if  the  Creator  de- 
sired to  impart  to  man  the  momentous  truth  of 
a  future  life  and  the  conditions  of  attaining 
immortal  felicity,  he  would  speak  only,  or 
chiefly,  in  hints  and  suggestions,  communicated 
at  long  intervals  of  time  to  selected  individuals, 
and  preserv^ed  for  future  ages  through  the  in- 
strumentality of  fading  parchments?  Can  it  be 
that  the  possibility  of  our  escaping  from  eternal 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      97 

woe  depends  upon  our  ability  to  decipher  old 
manuscripts,  written  In  languages  long  since 
disused  and  well-nigh  forgotten?  And  what, 
after  all,  does  the  so-called  revelation  reveal? 
How  diverse,  how  contradictory,  are  the  con- 
clusions drawn  by  different  students  of  that 
heterogeneous  collection  of  books  called  the 
Bible !  How  can  one  be  sure  of  the  correct- 
ness of  any  doctrine  without  thorough  Investi- 
gation for  himself  —  without  studying  the 
documents  patiently  In  the  original  tongues  and 
acquiring  considerable  knowledge  of  the  his- 
torical circumstances  of  their  composition? 
Yet  this,  few  men  can  do.  Life  Is  short,  and  Its 
physical  necessities  demand  our  first  attention. 
Is  It  reasonable  to  suppose  that  our  heavenly 
Father,  If  there  Is  such  a  being,  would  trust  his 
messages  to  a  channel  of  communication  so  ex- 
tremely precarious?  In  learning  what  God  de- 
sires of  us,  must  we  really  place  so  much 
dependence,  not  only  on  the  investigations  of 
other  men,  but  even  on  their  mere  interpreta- 
tions and  opinions?  ''A  direct  revelation  to 
myself,  so  conveyed  that  I  cannot  doubt  its  celes- 


98  A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

tlal  origin,  so  clear  that  I  cannot  misconstrue  Its 
purport  —  this  I  will  accept;  but  as  to  reve- 
lations to  other  people,  centuries  ago,  with  no 
satisfactory  opportunity  afforded  me  to  examine 
their  signs  of  authenticity,  and  embodying  state- 
ments that  I  do  not  at  all  understand,  together 
with  many  things  that  I  am  quite  unwilling  to 
believe  —  that  is  another  matter  altogether. 
It  is  unreasonable  to  expect  me  to  receive  de- 
liverances of  this  kind  at  second-hand,  and  in 
so  confused  and  uncertain  a  form  besides.  No ! 
Let  God  speak,  and  I  will  hear  him.  But  as  to 
records  in  books  of  what  other  men  say  he  has 
spoken,  I  have  something  else  to  do  than  to 
study  them;  I  cannot  puzzle  my  brains  over  such 
mystical  and  enigmatic  compositions." 

How  then  is  It  with  nature?  It  is  of  a  good 
deal  of  Importance  to  man  —  is  it  not?  —  to 
know  that  poppy-juice  will  produce  sleep,  and 
chloroform  insensibility  to  pain,  and  nightshade 
death.  It  Is  quite  desirable  to  be  aware  that 
smallpox  spreads  by  contagion  and  may  be 
warded  off  by  the  use  of  bovine  virus.  It  adds 
considerably  to  our  comfort  to  be  able  to  smelt 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE      99 

iron  ore,  and  to  find  coal-beds  by  the  indications 
of  geology.  It  materially  facilitates  navigation 
to  discover  that  the  barometer  falls  before  a 
storm,  and  that  a  magnetized  needle,  swinging 
free,  points  always  northward.  Now  has 
nature  proclaimed  these  truths  in  a  voice  which 
all  must  hear  and  none  can  misunderstand? 
Are  a  system  of  materia  medica  and  a  summary 
of  the  laws  of  hygiene  written  legibly  on  the 
surface  of  our  bodies?  Are  the  strata  of  the 
rocks  plainly  labeled,  "  Here  is  Iron,"  "  Below 
is  Coal,"  in  characters  which  the  first  man  as 
well  as  the  latest  could  interpret  at  sight?  Are 
the  truths  of  natural  philosophy  self-evident 
without  experimentation  and  reasoning?  Do 
we  owe  nothing  to  the  researches  of  those  who 
have  gone  before  us,  and  is  one  man's  opinion 
as  good  as  another's,  in  questions  of  material 
science?  Nature  is  a  mine  wherein  are  em- 
bedded diamonds  beyond  price.  Health, 
strength,  long  life,  the  ability  to  do  and  to  be, 
the  reputation  of  a  Copernicus  or  a  Newton, 
the  intellectual  exhilaration  that  accompanies 
important    researches    and    adds    the    keenest 


100        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

pleasure  to  great  discoveries  —  these  are  the 
prizes  that  she  offers  to  the  successful  explorer 
of  her  secret  ways.  To  many  persons,  such 
jewels  appear  to  be  far  more  attractive  than  the 
promise  of  a  celestial  crown.  But  how  one 
must  toll  for  them!  How  few,  how  vague, 
how  easily  mistaken,  are  the  Indications  that 
visible  nature  gives  us  of  the  positions  of  her 
precious  nuggets  I  How  often  do  explorers, 
though  gifted  with  the  sharpest  mental  vision, 
go  woefully  astray  and  end  In  ludicrous  or 
miserable  disaster!  Ages  Innumerable  have 
elapsed,  we  are  told,  since  man,  with  intellectual 
faculties  essentially  the  same  as  those  he  now 
employs,  was  developed  from  the  anthropoid 
apes.  Yet  It  Is  scarcely  seven  generations  since 
alchemy  became  chemistry  and  some  sound 
knowledge  of  the  constitution  of  matter  began 
to  be  acquired.  Four  centuries  have  not  passed 
since  it  was  demonstrated  that  the  world  moves; 
and  the  time  is  hardly  yet  arrived  for  the  mass 
of  mankind  to  grasp  the  rationale  of  the 
changes  In  the  appearance  of  the  moon  and  to 
understand  that  her  phases  have  no  relation  to 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE     loi 

terrestrial  events.  How  little,  even  yet,  do  we 
know  of  physiology  and  minute  anatomy! 
Who  can  tell  us  the  cause  of  neuralgia,  the 
peculiarities  of  action  of  a  diseased  nerve? 
Why,  it  is  not  yet  three  hundred  years  since  the 
very  elementary  discovery  was  made  that  the 
arteries  carry  blood!  How  slowly  and  pain- 
fully have  we  acquired  the  mere  smattering  of 
knowledge  that  we  now  possess  as  to  the  uni- 
verse at  large  and  even  as  to  the  mechanism  of 
our  own  bodies !  How  then  can  It  consistently 
be  expected  that  the  God  of  nature  should  pro- 
claim aloud.  In  clear  and  unmistakable  tones, 
the  attributes  of  his  own  being,  the  existence  of 
a  future  life  for  man,  and  the  conditions  of  at- 
taining felicity  beyond  the  grave?  Not  thus 
does  he  smooth  the  path  for  our  feet  In  seeking 
the  knowledge  that  we  most  need  for  the 
amelioration  of  our  earthly  life.  One  position 
is  believed  to  be  Impregnable:  The  truths  that 
absolutely  must  be  believed,  and  the  duties  that 
absolutely  must  be  done,  in  order  to  escape  the 
divine  wrath  with  which  his  conscience  threatens 
every   sinner,    are   revealed    so   plainly  In   the 


I02        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

Scriptures,  and  sanctioned  so  unmistakably  by 
the  reason  and  the  conscience,  that  the  wayfar- 
ing man,  though  a  fool,  need  not  err  —  just  as 
the  elementary  fact  that  our  physical  systems 
require  food  and  drink  and  sleep.  Is  taught  us 
by  nature  without  our  seeking.  But  as  one  who 
would  make  any  progress  In  physical  life  must 
bestir  himself  to  learn  other  things  than  these, 
so  must  he  who  desires  to  attain  any  consider- 
able knowledge  of  the  spiritual  world,  or  any 
purely  intellectual  grasp  of  the  evidence  that 
the  Scriptures  really  did  come  from  God,  search 
for  It  with  painstaking  diligence,  availing  him- 
self wherever  he  can  of  the  investigations  of 
others,  and  never  absolutely  certain  that  on 
many  points  he  Is  not  more  or  less  in  error.  It 
has  been  well  said  that  the  Bible  contains  a  sys- 
tem of  divinity  in  much  the  same  sense  as  that  in 
which  a  system  of  geology  lies  enfolded  in  the 
rocks.  If  the  author  of  the  one  Is  the  same  be- 
ing as  the  maker  of  the  other,  ought  not  such 
similarity  of  plan  to  be  confidently  expected, 
rather  than  seized  upon  as  a  ground  for  main- 
taining that  while  the  rocks  were  certainly  not 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE     103 

constructed  by  human   agency,    the   Scriptures 
were? 

V 

The  doctrine  that  many  agreeable  and  per- 
haps useful  persons  are  lost,  while  some  very 
unpleasant  people  are  finally  saved,  is  often  re- 
garded as  a  hard  saying  —  who  can  hear  it? 
But  has  the  objection  any  better  basis  than  mere 
confusion  of  thought?  To  clear  the  ground  of 
extraneous  matter,  let  it  first  be  distinctly  ad- 
mitted that  the  man  who  cares  not  at  all  to  be 
of  service  to  his  fellows,  and  who  makes  no 
effort  to  correct  his  own  infirmities  of  temper 
and  disposition,  deceives  himself  greatly  if  he 
imagines  that  he  enjoys  the  favor  of  God,  de- 
pending for  salvation  upon  his  intellectual  belief 
or  his  emotional  experiences.  Let  it  be  further 
admitted  —  what  is  the  mere  dictum  of  common 
sense  —  that  the  benevolent  and  kindly  soul 
must  fare  better  in  the  next  world,  other  things 
being  equal,  than  the  selfish  or  malicious  trans- 
gressor. But  this  being  fully  understood,  the 
great  fact  remains  that  if  there  is  a  personal 


104        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

God,  the  obligations  resting  upon  every  human 
being  as  a  moral  agent  divide  themselves  into 
two  classes,  duties  toward  the  Creator  and 
duties  toward  man;  and  that  even  the  abso- 
lutely perfect  discharge  of  one  of  these  sets  of 
duties,  were  that  possible,  can  furnish  no  excuse 
for  the  neglect  of  the  other.  That  is  to  say, 
the  most  benevolent  and  useful  man  on  earth, 
if  he  lead  a  godless  life,  never  thanking  his 
Creator  for  his  goodness,  never  perhaps  giving 
himself  seriously  to  the  consideration  of  the 
question  whether  the  Creator  has  demands 
upon  his  attention  or  has  made  a  revelation  of 
his  will  to  mankind,  should  not  be  surprised  at 
finding  an  appalling  indictment  lodged  against 
him  at  the  great  assize  on  charges  entirely  un- 
connected with  his  demeanor  toward  his  fellow- 
men,  whatever  that  demeanor  may  have  been. 

A  similar  principle  appears  plainly  enough  in 
human  transactions,  and  is  universally  recog- 
nized. An  undutiful  son,  detected  in  an  act  of 
base  ingratitude  and  disrespect  toward  his 
father,  will  hardly  be  allowed  to  plead.  In  ex- 
tenuation of  his  fault,  that  he  treats  his  own 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE     105 

children  kindly.  A  defaulting  bank  cashier 
would  be  considered  silly  as  well  as  dishonest 
should  he  expect  the  directors  to  overlook  his 
crime  because  of  his  scrupulous  observance  of 
all  the  commandments  except  the  eighth.  A 
careless  railroad  engineer,  on  trial  for  man- 
slaughter In  having  recklessly  brought  about  a 
terrible  disaster,  will  scarcely  undertake  to  de- 
fend himself  by  showing  that  he  always  pays  his 
debts  and  keeps  the  machinery  bright.  In  each 
case,  the  virtues  referred  to  may  be  rightly 
claimed  as  his  own  by  the  culprit;  but  that  fact 
is  entirely  irrelevant  to  the  matter  In  hand,  and 
would  be  so  considered  even  by  the  Illogical 
sentimentalists  who  Imagine  that 

"  Christ  ain't  a-going  to  be  too  hard 
On  a  man  that  died  for  men," 

however  irreligious  or  grossly  immoral  may 
have  been  that  man's  whole  life. 

There  is  another  way  of  looking  at  the  ques- 
tion. The  orthodox  faith  holds  that  the 
Savior's  atonement  is  offered  to  mankind  both 
as  a  cure  for  the  injuries  inflicted  by  sin  upon 


io6        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

our  moral  nature  and  as  a  protection  from  ter- 
rible evils  yet  to  come.  How  is  it  with  wounds 
and  ailments  in  our  bodies?  A  bone  of  the  leg 
is  broken;  will  any  degree  of  general  health, 
or  any  perfection  of  muscular  development, 
enable  the  patient  to  walk  while  that  fracture  is 
unrepaired?  A  man  has  taken  a  poison  for 
which  there  is  an  effective  antidote.  How 
much  will  you  accomplish  by  merely  placing 
him  in  a  luxurious  bed  and  supplying  him  with 
nutritious  food  and  refreshing  drinks?  Nature 
cares  nothing  for  the  fine  physique  in  the  one 
case  or  the  favorable  environment  in  the  other. 
The  needed  corrective  must  he  applied,  or  the 
activity  of  the  body  is  ended.  There  is  no  pos- 
sible escape  from  the  alternative. 

And  how  is  it  in  regard  to  protection  from 
the  terrible  wheels  of  the  material  universe  that 
will  crush  us  remorselessly  if  we  willfully  or 
ignorantly  fall  in  their  way?  We  live  in  the 
midst  of  dangers,  from  which  indeed  we  are 
liberally  provided  with  the  means  of  escape, 
but  which  will  brook  no  trifling.  It  is  a  winter 
evening  while  I  write.     Outside  my  windows 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE     107 

blows  a  whistling  storm  of  fine  dry  snow  that 
cuts  and  sears  like  fire,  and  the  mercury  has 
been  for  hours  near  zero.  Inside,  there  is 
warmth  and  safety  and  comfort.  Coal  burns, 
and  gives  me  heat.  Brick  walls,  heavy  doors, 
double  windows,  a  tight  roof,  defy  the  tempest. 
But  suppose  I  fail  to  take  advantage  of  the 
shelter.  Suppose  I  go  forth,  scantily  clothed, 
into  the  open  fields.  What  pity  can  I  expect 
from  nature?  —  that  same  beneficent  nature 
that  offers  me,  in  such  lavish  profusion,  coal  for 
fuel,  and  wood  for  timbers,  and  clay  for  bricks, 
and  sand  and  lime  for  glass.  She  will  ask  no 
questions,  but  summarily  destroy  me  for  my 
foolhardly  presumption.  The  principle  is  every- 
where and  always  the  same;  not  one  single 
transgression  of  the  thousand  regulations  that 
nature  has  prescribed  for  our  life  will  be  for- 
given or  overlooked  in  consideration  of  our 
scrupulously  observing  the  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine.  Each  infraction,  however  trifling, 
is  surely  punished;  and  if  one  offends  on  a  vital 
point,  there  can  be  no  result  but  certain  death. 
Beneficence,  provision  for  our  wants,  is  every- 


io8        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

where;  mercy,  the  overlooking  of  transgression, 
is  nowhere  to  be  discerned. 

It  surely  therefore  must  be  from  some  source 
very  different  from  the  study  of  nature  that  men 
have  drawn  the  conclusion  that  they  can  expect 
the  God  of  nature  to  pardon  their  neglect  of 
himself,  on  the  ground  that  they  have  been  use- 
ful and  agreeable  to  their  fellow-men  —  which 
is  exactly  equivalent  to  pardoning  the  infraction 
of  one  law  because  another  has  been  fulfilled ! 

VI 

And  in  respect  to  the  endless  duration  of  the 
punishment.  It  has  been  said,  in  high-sounding 
phrase,  that  It  must  be  impossible  for  a  finite 
being  to  commit  against  the  Infinite  any  sin  de- 
serving eternal  suffering.  That  may  be  true; 
the  proposition  is  of  such  a  nature  as  hardly  to 
admit  of  satisfactory  discussion.  But  surely  It 
is  quite  too  mechanical  and  limited  a  conception 
of  the  world  of  woe  to  think  of  it  as  a  torture 
chamber  wherein  pain  is  deliberately  inflicted  by 
higher  powers  in  execution  of  a  judicial  sen- 
tence —  so   much   sin   on   earth,   so   much  the 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE     109 

wretchedness  of  expiation  beyond.  What  the 
Scriptures  tell  us  Is  that  such  persons  as  de- 
liberately reject  In  this  life  the  means  of  sal- 
vation, pass  at  death  into  an  estate  of  misery. 
They  do  not  tell  us  that  further  sin  Is  Impossible. 
Blessed  be  God,  they  do  not  positively  and  in 
set  form  proclaim  that  repentance  is  Impossible 
either;  the  door  of  hope  Is  not  absolutely  and 
certainly,  beyond  all  question  or  doubt,  closed 
at  the  portals  of  the  grave.  But  how  Is  It  about 
sinning  and  repenting  here?  Can  any  truth  be 
more  manifest  than  that  the  probability  of  a 
transgressor's  forsaking  his  evil  ways  dimin- 
ishes with  a  fearful  ratio  as  he  goes  on  in  years 
and  In  wickedness?  The  principle  of  inertia,  ' 
in  progressive  motion  as  well  as  In  rest.  Is  to 
be  discerned  just  as  plainly,  by  those  who  care 
to  look  for  it,  in  spiritual  as  In  physical  move- 
ment. On  what  other  principle  do  our  laws 
act,  in  distinguishing  so  sharply  between  the 
first  transgressions  of  youth,  heinous  though 
they  may  be,  and  the  misdeeds  (perhaps  less 
black  In  themselves)  of  old  offenders,  and  In 
making  of  juvenile  delinquents  a  class  by  them- 


no        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

selves?  The  young  lawbreaker  may  be  saved, 
and  we  send  him  to  a  reformatory;  the  hard- 
ened malefactor  of  mature  years,  there  Is  no 
hope  for  him  —  let  him  go  to  a  prison,  and 
the  longer  the  better! 

Now  what  reason  can  analogy  suggest  for 
the  belief  of  our  Universalist  brethren  and  the 
"  free-thinkers "  who  outdo  them,  that  this 
downward  motion  of  the  soul  is  to  meet  with  a 
check  at  the  grave  or  beyond  it?  A  cannon- 
ball  Is  shot  out  into  space  —  when  will  its 
motion  cease?  A  child's  spine  grows  crooked 
for  a  dozen  years  —  when  will  It  begin  to 
straighten?  A  little  aneurism  forms  on  the 
aorta  —  when  will  the  artery  consolidate  itself 
Into  its  normal  dimensions?  A  man  acquires 
habits  of  falsehood  and  dishonesty,  and  they 
grow  upon  him  for  fifty  years  —  when  will  he 
probably  cast  them  off?  A  rational  creature 
of  God  passes  his  whole  life,  so  far  as  we  can 
see  It,  in  entire  neglect  of  his  Creator  —  when 
will  he  begin  to  reverence  the  Eternal  Purity? 
Let  death  come  soon  or  late;  death  is  only  the 
crumbling  back  of  the  corporeal  organs  to  their 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE     iii 

elements;  why  should  the  steady  progression  of 
the  spirit  toward  evil,  that  we  have  watched  for 
thirty,  or  fifty,  or  eighty  years,  be  even  re- 
tarded by  its  freedom  from  physical  restraints? 
Does  not  the  analogy  of  all  things  here  sug- 
gest rather  an  accelerated  movement,  acceler- 
ated with  ever  increasing  velocity,  in  the  same 
line  as  before?  If  there  is  one  solemn  lesson 
that  the  observation  of  nature  forces  more  than 
another  upon  the  attention  of  the  observer,  it 
is  surely  this :  Processes  of  deterioration,  once 
well  established,  generally  end  only  when  there 
is  no  more  material  to  work  upon.  The  mold 
propagates  itself  in  all  directions;  the  rust  in- 
creases; the  ulcer  spreads;  the  gangrene  ad- 
vances toward  vital  parts;  the  dishonest  boy, 
unrestrained,  makes  a  dangerous  man;  the  liar 
at  fifteen,  unless  some  powerful  influence  of 
good  transforms  his  moral  nature,  is  a  defaulter 
at  twenty-five;  the  man  of  occasional  excesses 
in  middle  life  becomes  a  confirmed  sot  in  later 
years.  Facilis,  ever  facilis,  is  the  descensus 
Averni;  and  if  sin  brings  suffering  now,  why 
not  a  century  from  now?     Why  not  a  million 


112        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

centuries?  An  Immortal  soul,  eternally  going 
wrong  —  why  not .  eternally  suffering  the 
penalty? 

1 

If  now  the  points  of  resemblance  that  have 
been  suggested  between  the  system  of  belief 
that  Is  called  "  orthodoxy  "  on  the  one  hand 
and  the  constitution  of  nature  on  the  other,  are 
justified  by  correct  observation,  one  of  two  con- 
clusions would  seem  certain.  If  It  be  main- 
tained that  orthodoxy  Is  like  nature  because  It 
has  been  developed  from  the  study  of  nature, 
the  deduction  must  Instantly  follow  that  Its  doc- 
trines are  probably  sound.  It  is  one  of  the 
lamentable  Infirmities  of  thinking  very  apt  to 
result  from  that  exclusive  attention  to  material 
things  which  now-a-days  so  often  usurps  to 
itself  the  name  of  "  science,"  that  many  great 
investigators  of  this  lower  realm  of  phenomena 
are  prone  to  fall  to  recognize,  and  therefore 
prone  to  reject,  their  own  methods  when  ap- 
plied to  higher  objects  of  thought.  They  work 
by  analogy  without  scruple  in  determining  the 
probable    condition    of   affairs    on    the    planet 


ORTHODOXY  AND  NATURE     113 

Jupiter,  or  the  mode  of  life  of  the  palaeozoic 
fauna;  and  they  deride  analogy  as  the  ignis 
fatuus  of  imaginative  dreamers,  the  moment 
you  apply  it  to  the  study  of  our  spiritual  nature! 
A  thinker  of  broader  intellect  can  hardly  fail 
to  perceive  that  careful  and  well-based  deduc- 
tions from  what  happens  here  and  now.  In  the 
psychological  no  less  than  In  the  material  uni- 
verse, are  extremely  likely  to  prove  trustworthy 
guides  in  regard  to  the  events  of  all  the  future. 
But  In  point  of  fact,  we  know  very  well  that 
no  system  of  sacred  philosophy  was  ever  de- 
veloped. In  large  degree  or  in  small,  from  the 
study  of  nature.  Theologians  have  been  men 
of  the  closet,  not  of  the  laboratory,  the  field 
or  the  market-place.  Taking  as  a  basis  the 
sketchy  outline  furnished  by  the  writers  of  the 
Scriptures,  they  have  applied  to  it  the  methods 
of  ordinary  logic,  often  going  wrong,  no  doubt, 
but  successively  correcting  each  other's  results, 
till  the  comprehensive  system  on  which.  In  ev- 
ery essential  point,  all  evangelical  churches  are 
agreed,  has  gradually  assumed  Its  present  form 
and  dimensions,  including  no  small  number  of 


114        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

points  of  unlooked-for  similarity  to  the  mani- 
fest operations  of  nature.  Whence  came  the 
original  outline? — involving  as  it  does  so  much 
that  man  would  never  have  either  expected  or 
desired,  so  much  that  Is  mysterious  If  not  in- 
comprehensible, so  much  that  is  not  only  seem- 
ingly inconsistent  and  Irreconcilable  with  itself, 
but  In  conflict  with  human  reason  as  well  — 
and  withal,  so  much  that  on  close  Inspection  re- 
minds us  of  similar  processes  and  similar  rid- 
dles In  the  world  of  every-day  phenomena  all 
around  us. 

The  simple,  natural,  almost  unavoidable  con- 
clusion would  seem  to  be  this  —  that  the  First 
Cause  of  nature  (say  "God"  or  not,  as  you 
please)  must  have  been  In  some  manner  the 
Insplrer  of  the  teachings  of  the  Bible  in  regard 
to  our  relations  with  the  Creator,  our  duties 
and  our  future  —  the  author,  that  Is  to  say,  of 
the  great  conceptions  and  beliefs  that  He  at 
the  foundation  of  the  orthodox  faith.  If  a 
more  probable  hypothesis  can  be  framed,  bet- 
ter accounting  for  all  the  facts,  neither  ma- 
terialist nor  agnostic  has  yet  told  us  what  It  Is. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  OTHER 
RELIGIONS 

A  SENTENCE  In  the  preface  to  this  little 
book  may  bear  amplification.  I  certainly 
do  not  myself  believe  that  a  sane  man,  rejecting 
the  evidence  that  Christianity  is  from  the  Crea- 
tor, could  accept  any  other  religion  as  divine. 
But  there  Is  a  view  of  the  case  that  deserves 
respectful  consideration,  the  opinion  that  the 
essential  features  of  Christianity  are  divinely 
Inspired  undoubtedly,  but  only  In  the  same 
sense  as  are  the  essential  features  of  other 
faiths.  To  Inquire  how  far  this  belief  Is  sup- 
ported by  established  facts  Is  the  same  as  to 
Inquire  whether  It  Is  a  scientific  doctrine.  Does 
It  appear  that  the  Creator  has  revealed  Himself 
at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  to  many 
other  nations  as  well  as  to  the  Jews? 

For  one,  I  certainly  would  not  answer  no. 
Very  large  parts  of  the  best  non-Jewish  the- 

115 


ii6        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

ology  of  ancient  times  are  avowedly  conjecture 
only,  just  the  sort  of  conjecture  that  we  should 
expect  from  elevated  minds  If  man  really  has  a 
Maker  and  bears  to  him  anything  like  a  filial 
relation.  Such  is  manifestly  the  theology  of 
Cicero  among  the  Latins  and  Plato  among  the 
Greeks.  It  may  have  been  based  on  a  certain 
degree  of  subtle  inspiration,  inspiration  just  as 
genuine,  so  far  as  it  went,  as  was  vouchsafed 
to  the  writer  of  any  book  in  the  Bible.  This 
inspiration  did  not  go  far,  however;  and  its 
teachings  were  never  so  promulgated  as  to  ex- 
ercise any  influence  worth  mentioning  on  the 
belief  or  the  character  of  the  people  at  large. 
It  was  a  sort  of  dilettante  philosophizing,  bear- 
ing none  of  the  marks  that  we  feel  ought  to 
and  must  attest  a  true  and  sufficient  revelation 
from  the  Eternal. 

But  It  does  not  seem  easy  to  dispose  of  all 
the  high  spiritual  insight  of  the  ''  heathen " 
world  by  the  simple  expedient  of  calling  It  a 
guess.  The  facts  do  not  look  that  way.  Con- 
sider for  instance  the  tremendous  solidity  of 
the  belief  In  immortality  that  prevailed  among 


CHRISTIANITY  117 

the  ancient  Egyptians  and  so  worked  itself  out 
in  constant  practical  application  as  abundantly 
to  justify  Herodotus  in  saying  of  these  people, 
as  Paul  afterwards  said  of  the  Athenians,  that 
they  were  exceedingly  religious.  There  was  no 
need  to  admonish  them  that  the  present  life  is 
a  vapor,  appearing  for  a  little  time  and  then 
vanishing  away;  they  understood  that  per- 
fectly, and  seem  to  have  lived  far  more,  In  a 
sense.  In  the  next  world  than  in  this,  devoting 
to  the  preparation  for  eternity  a  proportion  of 
time  and  effort  that  shames  the  most  enlightened 
nations  of  the  world  to-day.  Much  of  their 
method  seems  perhaps  laughable  to  us,  though 
it  may  better  be  thought  of  as  deeply  pathetic, 
—  their  strenuous  endeavors  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  bodies  of  the  dead,  and  their  childish 
provision  for  the  supposed  material  necessi- 
ties of  post-mortem  existence.  But  their  view 
of  the  hereafter  was  not  all  superstitious  folly; 
far  from  it.  The  picture  of  the  last  judgment 
drawn  in  their  great  religious  treatise,  the 
"  Book  of  the  Dead,"  a  composition  of  un- 
known  antiquity  but   certainly   far  antedating 


ii8        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

the  twenty-fifth  century  before  Christ,  is  in  all 
its  main  outlines  as  strong  and  masterly  as 
words  could  paint.  The  deceased  soul  is 
brought  before  Osiris,  who  represents  mercy 
and  love  above  all  things  but  nevertheless  ren- 
ders justice,  and  who  Is  aided  by  forty-two  as- 
sessors, each  charged  with  the  duty  of  inquir- 
ing about  one  of  the  listed  sins  of  the  Egyptian 
catalog,  exactly  such  transgressions,  for  the 
most  part,  as  would  be  denounced  to-day.  They 
Include  blasphemy,  deceit,  theft,  murder,  adul- 
tery, cruelty,  disorderly  conduct,  idleness, 
drunkenness,  injustice,  excessive  talkativeness, 
Indiscreet  curiosity,  slander,  envy,  false  accu- 
sation, keeping  milk  from  the  mouths  of  suck- 
lings, abusing  slaves,  defiling  the  river,  divert- 
ing water  during  the  inundation,  taking  the 
clothes  of  the  dead,  and  several  kinds  of  com- 
mercial dishonesty,  covering  specifically  every 
sort  of  cheating  by  false  weights  and  measures. 
Nor  is  this  all.  The  candidate  for  happy  im- 
mortality must  prove  the  exercise  of  positive 
as  well  as  of  negative  virtue.  It  must  be 
shown  that  he  has  given  bread  to  the  hungry, 


CHRISTIANITY  119 

water  to  the  thirsty,  clothing  to  the  naked,  a 
boat  to  the  shipwrecked  mariner,  and  in  gen- 
eral that  he  has  made  it  his  delight  to  do  what 
men  command  and  the  gods  approve.  Nor  is 
this  all.  His  heart  must  be  fundamentally 
right;  and  it  is  weighed  with  much  solemnity, 
on  scales  carefully  tested  in  his  presence  im- 
mediately before  the  trial.  Actions,  motives, 
and  even  the  underlying  character,  all  come 
into  painstaking  review.  What  more  can  we 
imagine  of  a  final  judgment  in  truth  and  right- 
eousness? 

Egyptian  mythology,  moreover,  for  all  its 
imaginary  pantheon  of  nondescript  creatures, 
some  wholly  bestial,  some  half  human  but  with 
heads  of  animals  and  birds,  seems  to  have  been 
distinctly  monotheistic  at  bottom,  the  priestly 
order,  and  probably  the  more  intelligent 
classes  of  laymen,  understanding  perfectly  that 
the  many  gods  were  really  only  appearances 
of  the  One  Supreme  Being  of  whose  existence 
they  were  quite  as  sure  as  are  we.  There  is 
no  trace  of  idolatry  in  their  worship,  not  even 
of  the  subtle  form  in  which  the  devotee,  bow- 


120        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

ing  down  before  a  graven  image,  is  supposed 
to  venerate,  not  the  image  itself,  but  the  un- 
seen divinity  that  the  image  represents.  The 
most  ancient  documents  discovered  speak  re- 
peatedly of  ''  the  only  true  living  God,"  "  who 
has  made  all  things  but  has  not  Himself  been 
made,"  a  being  never  represented  in  Egyptian 
sculpture  or  painting,  and  to  whom  no  name  is 
given.  Undoubtedly  this  article  of  their  creed 
was  largely  esoteric,  not  grasped  at  all  by  the 
common  people  in  their  devout  worship  of  the 
individual  gods  and  goddesses,  and  overlaid 
probably,  even  in  the  minds  of  the  learned,  by 
a  mass  of  superstition.  Also  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  we  find  among  their  pictorial  rep- 
resentations of  the  divine  powers  of  nature 
some  figures  of  such  gross  obscenity  that  I 
think  no  book  portrays  or  even  describes  them, 
certainly  no  book  intended  for  general  circu- 
lation —  one  must  see  them  on  the  walls  of  the 
tombs  to  learn  what  they  are.  Nevertheless 
and  for  all  that,  it  would  certainly  seem  to 
savor  of  unscientific  rashness  to  deny  the  possi- 
bility of  there  having  been  a  real  divine  revela- 


CHRISTIANITY  121 

tlon  to  the  minds  of  those  astonishing  Africans 
who  erected,  long  before  the  dawn  of  authentic 
history,  a  great  number  of  such  enormous  tem- 
ples as  amaze  the  beholder  to-day,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  their  constructing,  for  a  purpose  closely 
allied  to  religion,  by  far  the  largest  and  most 
massive  building  on  earth,  a  building  that  is 
believed  to  have  been  thousands  of  years  old 
when  Abraham  was  born. 

So  also  with  the  great  religions  of  India,  and 
possibly  with  those  of  other  countries  that  have 
made  smaller  or  less  permanent  Impression  on 
the  thinking  of  the  world.  Under  the  revolt- 
ing cover  of  disgusting  vice  and  almost  unim- 
aginable folly  that  makes  most  of  these  faiths 
the  synonym,  In  many  minds,  for  every  form 
of  evil,  there  does  generally  seem  to  be  dis- 
cernible, on  research,  a  certain  qualified  form 
of  monotheism  not  different  In  essential  sub- 
stance from  that  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  to- 
gether with  some  broken  or  inchoate  elements 
of  a  moral  law  that  would  have  been  approved 
by  Moses  or  Nehemiah.  We  read  such  sen- 
tences as  these  in  the  ancient  books  of  the  East: 


122        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

"  The  true  name  is  God,  without  fear,  without 
enmity,  the  Being  without  death,  the  Giver  of 
salvation."  ^'  One  self-existent.  Himself  the 
Creator,  one  continueth;  another  never  was  and 
never  will  be."  "  Meditate  upon  Him  in 
whose  hands  are  life  and  death."  "  Let  faith 
in  God  characterize  all  your  thoughts,  words 
and  actions."  "  If  you  call  upon  God,  you  will 
be  able  to  subdue  your  imperfections,  and  the 
evil  inclinations  of  your  mind  will  depart  from 
you ;  but  they  will  return,  when  you  cease  to  call 
upon  Him." 

Similar  glimmerings  of  the  great  truths  of 
the  Jewish-Christian  Scriptures  may  be  found, 
no  doubt,  in  the  religious  literature  of  many 
other  lands.  They  may  have  been  guesses; 
they  may  have  been  inspired.  Be  that  as  it 
may,  the  differences  between  these  faiths  and 
that  of  the  Bible  are  evidently  immeasurably 
great.  You  will  hardly  find  in  any  of  them 
the  doctrine  of  divine  pardon  for  sin  on  re- 
pentance and  reformation  without  some  form 
of  painfully  working  out  an  atonement;  and 
you  will  miss  other  material  features  of  the 


CHRISTIANITY  123 

Christian  revelation.  It  is  only  in  their  very- 
highest  and  on  the  whole  exceptional  charac- 
teristics that  these  faiths  bear  any  resemblance 
to  Christianity;  and  their  practical  outworking 
among  the  people  is  In  a  direction  exactly  the 
opposite  of  hers,  resulting  In  polytheism,  gen- 
erally in  idolatry,  and  very  often,  certainly  In 
India  through  all  the  ages,  In  a  horrible  condi- 
tion of  society  and  the  degradation  of  re- 
ligious ceremonies  to  the  practice  of  unbridled 
vice.     By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them. 

Remains  for  consideration,  however,  one 
system  of  thought  that  has  emerged  from  the 
darkness  of  the  native  faiths  of  India,  being 
Indeed  claimed  to  be  the  mother  of  them  all, 
and  has  spread  widely  over  the  earth  In  recent 
years,  winning  more  adherents  or  at  least  stu- 
dents than  one  would  suppose  without  investiga- 
tion. This  is  what  is  now  known  as  Theosophy, 
though  it  differs  widely  from  some  of  the  an- 
cient applications  of  that  name.  It  may  con- 
tain fundamental  truth  directly  Inspired  by  the 
Divinity.  Whether  it  does  or  not,  Is  imma- 
terial for  present  purposes,  because  Theosophy 


124        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

cannot  accurately  be  described  as  a  religion. 
A  Theosophist  may  be  a  Buddhist,  a  Roman 
Catholic,  a  Quaker.  As  a  highly  devout  and 
highly  intellectual  follower  of  the  cult,  who  is 
at  the  same  time  a  member  in  good  and  regular 
standing  of  the  Congregational  church,  has 
written:  "  Theosophy  is  more  a  wisdom  built 
upon  former  conceptions  than  an  original  first- 
principle  religion.  It  does  not  teach  dogmatic 
theology  or  hold  hard  and  fast  beliefs,  except 
that  one  must  believe  in  and  lead  the  life  of 
universal  brotherhood  to  be  a  Theosophist.  I 
have  given  It  much  thought  and  study  for 
twenty-five  years,  and  find  nothing  in  it  to  con- 
flict with  Christ's  teachings.  Most  Theoso- 
phists  think  of  the  God  of  Christ  as  in-dwelling, 
the  light  within  — '  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
within  you,'  and  God  must  dwell  in  his  king- 
dom; but  to  me  this  does  not  conflict  with  a 
conception  of  a  Great  Intelligence,  a  Compas- 
sionate One  who  answers  prayer  and  to  whom 
it  is  worth  while  to  appeal."  No  comparison 
is  therefore  to  be  drawn  between  the  supposed 
inspiration  of  Theosophy  and  the  supposed  In- 


CHRISTIANITY  125 

spiration  of  Christianity,  for  there  is  no  neces- 
sary conflict  between  the  two.  Rather  is  there, 
in  many  respects,  a  striking  similarity.  The 
inner  Theosophical  life  begins  with  a  change 
much  like  Christian  conversion,  the  entering 
upon  a  mystical  Path  that  leads  through  Gates 
of  Gold  and  beyond  them  into  a  region  where 
man  is  on  the  threshold  of  becoming  more  than 
man.  This  change  demands  a  resolute  and 
irrevocable  turning  of  the  soul  from  all  sin  that 
soils  it,  toward  the  pure  light  of  goodness,  and 
most  especially  and  above  all  things  from  every 
form  of  selfishness;  the  pupil  must  not  even 
wish  to  tread  the  Path  because  it  will  bring 
him  to  blessedness,  but  only  because  it  is  right 
for  him  to  walk  there;  and  he  is  earnestly 
warned  that  he  must  pass  through  much  mental 
distress  before  making  great  progress.  Bun- 
yan  and  the  Slough  of  Despond  come  instantly 
to  mind,  here  and  in  the  sketchy  outlines  that 
are  given  of  what  will  be  experienced  further 
on.  A  very  great  proportion  of  Theosophical 
doctrine,  especially  in  its  practical  applications 
to  daily  life,  might  be  adopted  verbatim  by 


126        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

any  Christian  church,  and  one  may  well  believe 
that  it  is  in  some  sense  divinely  inspired,  without 
either  subscribing  to  or  positively  rejecting  the 
many  features  which  differentiate  it  as  a  sys- 
tem of  philosophy  from  what  can  properly  be 
called  a  religion. 

It  seems  therefore  to  the  writer  of  these 
pages  that  Christianity  is  preeminently  the  re- 
ligion of  the  world,  the  only  system  of  religious 
belief  for  which  unqualified  and  continuous  di- 
vine authority  can  reasonably  be  claimed.  And 
with  all  that  Is  said  to  the  contrary,  Its  fruits 
thus  far  gathered  appear  to  him  to  justify  the 
belief  that  it  will  ultimately  receive  universal 
acceptance.  These  fruits  are  known  of  all 
men.  Paint  the  vice  of  the  so-called  Christian 
countries  as  black  as  you  will,  It  remains  true 
that  In  them  are  millions  of  almost  ideal  homes, 
made  so  most  distinctly  by  the  teachings  of 
Christianity,  and  millions  of  men  and  women 
who  are  honestly  endeavoring  to  lead  the  sort 
of  life  that  Christianity  Inculcates.  And  the 
progress  of  Christianity  toward  universal  ac- 
ceptance  is  not  really  quite   as  slow  as  some 


CHRISTIANITY  127 

people  would  have  us  believe.  About  one- 
third  of  the  population  of  the  world  may  now 
be  computed  as  accepting  it  or  professing, 
though  perhaps  rather  languidly,  to  accept  it; 
and  there  are  said  to  be  seventeen  million  en- 
rolled Christians  in  non-christian  lands.  That 
may  not  seem  a  large  result  after  two  thousand 
years;  but  the  rate  of  gain  is  accelerating.  In 
China,  it  took  a  century  to  make  the  first  mil- 
lion converts;  twelve  years  for  the  second  mil- 
lion; less  than  six  years  for  the  third.  And 
then,  if  man  has  really  been  on  the  earth  for 
quarter  of  the  immensely  long  period  now  al- 
leged by  palaeontological  science,  what  is  a 
couple  of  millenniums? 

Two  great  difficulties  in  the  way  of  believing 
in  the  ultimate  universality  of  the  acceptance 
of  Christianity  come,  of  course,  instantly  to 
mind  —  the  bewildering  diversity  of  discordant 
sects  into  which  the  church  is  cut  up,  and  the 
apparent  loss  of  general  influence  by  the  au- 
thorities of  perhaps  all  denominations,  in  re- 
cent years.  A  distinguished  publicist  and  very 
practical  man  of  affairs,  Henry  Watterson,  said 


128         A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

recently  In  a  public  address:  "  The  pulpit  re- 
mains therefore  still  the  moral  hope  of  the  uni- 
verse and  the  spiritual  light  of  mankind." 
That  depends  on  the  meaning  that  Is  to  be  at- 
tached to  the  word  "  pulpit."  The  power  of 
the  present  pulpit,  just  as  now  constituted,  over 
public  opinion  and  practice  in  the  so-called 
Christian  countries,  is  a  mere  fraction,  we  are 
generally  told,  of  what  it  was;  and  people  do 
not  attend  worship  In  anything  like  the  pro- 
portion that  prevailed  a  generation  ago;  what- 
ever the  church  may  be  gaining  abroad,  it  is 
losing  more  at  home  In  the  rapid  diminution, 
in  the  lands  in  which  It  has  been  longest  es- 
tablished, of  its  sway  over  the  thought  and 
the  lives  of  men.  Personally,  I  think  these 
statements  are  not  without  foundation;  and  it 
appears  to  me  that  the  regretted  change  shows 
every  sign  of  being  steadily  progressive;  novel- 
ties of  method  In  the  churches,  the  Introduction 
of  popular  social  features  and  the  like,  seem 
to  effect  little  or  nothing  in  the  way  of  check- 
ing It.  But  it  is  essential  to  remember  that 
''  the  church  "  and  "  Christianity  "  are  not  nee- 


CHRISTIANITY  129 

essarlly  Interconvertible  terms;  Christianity 
may  be  immensely  strengthened  by  such  a 
transformation  of  all  present  church  organiza- 
tions as  shall  amount  practically  to  their  utter 
destruction,  and  the  evolution  of  something  en- 
tirely different.  Can  we  not  even  now  per- 
ceive some  indications  of  such  an  evolutionary 
process?  Are  not  the  minds  of  most  thought- 
ful persons  preparing  for  it?  Instead  of  the 
former  uncompromising  adherence  to  elaborate 
and  rigid  creeds  down  to  most  unessential  par- 
ticulars, it  seems  to  me  that  a  very  hopeful 
proportion  of  religious  people  are  coming  more 
and  more  to  separate  the  articles  of  their  faith, 
almost  unconsciously  perhaps,  but  still  effect- 
ively, into  four  classes.  They  recognize,  first, 
that  a  great  many  questions  formerly  the  sub- 
ject of  heated  debate  can  never  be  definitely 
settled,  and  are  of  about  as  much  importance 
as  the  tints  In  the  coat  that  Jacob  gave  to 
Joseph;  you  don't  know  what  they  were,  you 
can't  find  out,  and  nobody  need  care.  Then 
secondly,  there  are  many  tenets,  not  quite  so 
trifling  but  certainly  not  vital,  about  which  they 


130        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

hold  their  judgment  in  suspense;  they  have 
never  decided  on  them,  and  they  let  them  rest 
until  perhaps  they  shall  see  more  light. 
Thirdly,  there  are  points  of  doctrine  that  ap- 
pear to  them  to  be  clear,  but  about  which  they 
see  no  necessity  of  discussion,  realizing  that 
other  people,  just  as  good  Christians  as  them- 
selves, may  view  them  very  differently,  and  not 
without  some  reason ;  such  for  instance  are  sev- 
eral of  the  doctrines  referred  to  in  the  chapter 
immediately  preceding  this,  doctrines  that  seem 
to  millions  of  thoughtful  people  to  be  securely 
established,  but  about  which  they  have  no  quar- 
rel with  any  one  who  rejects  them.  The  irre- 
ducible minimum  that  remains,  the  creed  that 
must  be  accepted  if  one  believes  In  any  form 
of  Christianity,  is  far  smaller,  surely,  than  for- 
merly it  was  thought  to  be,  leaving  a  neutral 
zone  that  gives  common  ground  for  far  greater 
variety  of  opinion  than  it  would  have  been  sup- 
posed able  to  accommodate,  a  century  ago. 
Let  it  be  noted  that  the  broader  modern  view 
is  distinctly  scientific,  being  precisely  the  view 
that   real  students   of  physical   science   always 


CHRISTIANITY  131 

take  in  their  specialties.  There  are  many 
trifling  possibilities  about  which  they  do  not 
concern  themselves  at  all;  many  suppositions 
about  which  they  have  not  reached  final  de- 
cision; many  that  they  think  are  well  estab- 
lished but  would  by  no  means  cling  to  perti- 
naciously should  real  objection  be  brought  up; 
many  that  they  regard  as  so  positively  settled 
that  if  anybody  doubts  them  he  only  displays 
ignorance.  The  adoption,  in  the  highest  of  all 
the  sciences,  of  a  mental  attitude  long  recog- 
nized as  necessary  to  real  progress  in  investigat- 
ing the  phenomena  of  physical  matter  and  force, 
is  a  most  promising  augury,  it  seems  to  me, 
for  final  agreement  on  the  essentials,  very 
nearly  as  peaceful  as  that  which  prevails  con- 
cerning the  operation  of  gravitation  or  the  ro- 
tation of  the  planets. 

This  great  gain  in  our  habits  of  thought  is 
manifesting  itself  in  the  perfectly  patent  fact 
that  the  division  lines  between  the  different  cate- 
gories of  religious  belief  are  far  less  rigidly 
drawn  than  formerly.  Roman  Catholics  no 
longer  class  all  "  heretics  "  with  atheists  and 


132        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

the  heathen;  members  of  the  so-called  "  Evan- 
gelical "  communions  no  longer  regard,  on  the 
one  side,  all  Romanists  as  idolaters  or,  on  the 
other  side,  all  Unitarians  as  awful  blasphemers, 
sure  of  final  damnation;  Unitarians  fraternize 
In  many  ways  with  Trinitarians  on  one  hand 
and  with  Jews  on  the  other.  Three  very  im- 
portant denominations  In  Canada  —  the  Pres- 
byterian, the  Congregational  and  the  Metho- 
dist—  which  differ  widely  In  their  plans  of 
organization  and  polity,  as  well  as  in  many 
points  of  doctrine  formerly  regarded  as  of  al- 
most vital  importance,  have  not  only  abolished 
the  divisions  which  cut  up  each  of  them  (as 
they  are  still  cut  up  In  the  United  States)  into 
a  number  of  sub-denominations,  but  have  defi- 
nitely agreed  to  merge  all  the  three  great 
churches  into  a  single  organic  body  standing 
for  the  essentials  on  which  all  agree,  and  waiv- 
ing Insistence  on  the  minor  points  formerly  too 
much  emphasized  by  each  of  them.  There  has 
been  organized  also  in  the  Anglican  church 
of  the  Dominion  a  "  Church  Unity  League  " 
the  members  of  which  disavow  the  notion,  still 


CHRISTIANITY  133 

generally  held  In  the  Episcopal  communion 
everywhere,  that  only  ordination  by  an  Episco- 
pal bishop  can  really  make  a  man  a  Prot- 
estant clergyman.  The  alarm  at  this  tend- 
ency not  infrequently  displayed  by  sectarian 
teachers  of  the  extreme  type,  who  iden- 
tify with  religion  the  peculiar  tenets  of  their 
special  faith,  and  look  upon  the  threatened 
modification  of  the  latter  as  equivalent  to  the 
destruction  of  the  former, —  this  very  display 
of  alarm  Indicates  the  increasing  strength  of 
the  movement  toward  some  sort  of  unity,  vague 
as  are  at  present  our  efforts  to  feel  after  It  and 
find  It.  There  are  dark  clouds  on  the  horizon? 
Yes;  is  there  not  also  dawn,  the  promise  of 
day?  The  necessity  of  far-reaching  re-ar- 
rangement is  not  of  Itself  alarming.  It  is 
hardly  to  be  conceived  as  possible  that  any 
changes  In  the  future  in  the  organization  and 
the  forms  of  worship  called  Christian  can  mark 
differences  with  the  present  status  wider  than 
the  differences  that  now  prevail  between  say  the 
Roman  Church  and  the  Society  of  Friends;  and 
if  Christianity  can  endure  such  striking  varia- 


134        A  LAYMAN'S  APOLOGY 

tlons  contemporaneously,  It  does  not  appear 
that  her  vitality  will  be  threatened  by  differences 
of  no  greater  importance  coming  in  succession. 
Do  not  the  established  facts  of  history  and  the 
Zeitgeist  of  the  present  day  suggest  strongly 
the  gradual  development  of  a  distinctly  Chris- 
tian brotherhood  that  shall  more  and  more  per- 
ceive and  propagate  to  universal  dominion 
among  mankind  the  great  principles  on  which 
all  churches  rest,  and  more  and  more  free  itself 
of  every  impediment  in  the  way  of  man-made 
additions  to  the  Christianity  of  Christ? 

We  have  far  fewer,  or  at  any  rate  far  less 
vociferous,  professional  Infidels  now  than  for- 
merly; and  the  positive  atheist,  seizing  every 
occasion  to  propagate  his  views,  seems  to  have 
become  an  almost  extinct  species.  Still,  there 
are  some  of  both  classes  left;  and  to  them  may 
perhaps  be  commended  not  inappropriately  the 
admonition  of  Gamaliel:  "Refrain;  if  this 
counsel  or  this  work  be  of  men,  It  will  come  to 
naught;  if  it  be  of  God,  ye  cannot  overthrow 
it;  lest  haply  ye  be  found  even  to  fight  against 
God." 


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